Tempo
by malicecat
Summary: Diary entries following the gradual progression of Kim and Jared's relationship - a story about imprinting, love, and everything in between. 10. Allegro
1. Vivace

**1.**_**Vivace**_

**xxx**

**Friday, December 30th**

Right, so this is going to be my very first entry in this diary – I've lost count of how many I've been though considering how, as Ma puts it, I "go through these things like our family owns a paper-processing plant".

Which we don't, obviously. We'd have a lot more floor space if we did. But that's just my Ma trying to inject some of her strange parental humor into how I'm always writing, I guess.

What can I say? I've been keeping diaries ever since I discovered how to properly hold a pencil. When I was younger and bored out of my wits (which was often), I'd always be found scribbling on any surface I could get my hands on, which was what prompted Ma to get me an outlet for all the words I couldn't keep bottled up inside of me. Though back then, I'm pretty sure most of what I wrote ran along the lines of "I am Kim, I like cats" or something of the sort.

I've still got my old diaries hidden in a shoebox at the back of my tiny cupboard. They range from glossy and bright pink to battered, worn calendar diaries, but they all have one thing in common: they revolve around the Boy-Who-Must-Not-Be-Mentioned. I've endured too much of that "unrequited love" rubbish already, don't you think? It's time for a _fresh start._

I have to say, this is an absolutely brilliant idea. Fresh starts are good. They're great. You get to press the proverbial reset button and move on with your life, instead of spending your days pining over a boy who doesn't even know you exist.

In fact, I think I -

**Friday, December 30th, later**

Got interrupted there. That was Charles barging in earlier, asking me to – well, demanding, really – help him find the keys to his Danny's car. Honestly. You'd think being an older brother meant that he'd be more responsible and not toss his keys all over the place, eh? Nope. We ended up searching through the whole house for a little more than an hour. I've got to admit, for such a tiny house, there sure are a lot of nooks and crannys. We finally spotted the keys tucked under the sofa, which took a bit of lifting (and dropping, on my part). He eventually went on his way without so much as a _thank you_– "That's for letting go on two and dropping that damn couch on my foot!" – which I have to say, was entirely not my fault. I've got zero upper arm strength and he knows it.

He's not the worst of the lot, though (oh, if only). There's Danny, who's the oldest. He's pretty much been the head of the hosue ever since Da died. He's got muscles like you wouldn't believe – and well, coupled with his height, I think it's safe to say that we couldn't look more different if we tried. Danny's 6'3". I'm 5'4". I suppose if I hoisted car parts around and stood in the sun all day, we'd look a little more similar. Which would never happen. I have the grace of a wounded hippopotamus when it comes to lugging heavy things about.

Then there's Benjamin, but we all call him "Benji" or "Ben" (Lucy, his girlfriend). He's the second oldest, and he's got about a million part-time jobs on his plate. Gas attendant, waiter, bartender – you name it, he's probably worked it. He's hardly home most of the time, which is kind of to be expected.

Right now, it's only me and Charles in high school, still. Charles is a year older, a head taller, and on the football team with the Boy-Who-Must-Not-Be-Mentioned. He's graduating at the end of the term and starting work right after. I can't even think about going to college, either, not even with a scholarship. It just isn't an option. Ever since Da… well, we've kind of been mired in debt. We've moved from house to house at least three times in the past four years. And Ma's bad leg makes it hard for her to travel to work and stuff, so it's been pretty much up to us to keep the finances afloat.

I know Danny wants me to go to college, though. He's always saying that I'm the brains of the family; he's even banned me from getting a part-time job so that I can concentrate on my schoolwork. But between you and me, it just isn't going to happen. I don't want to leave La Push. I've told him that a million times, but he's got the whole "overbearing, pushy older brother" thing down to an art.

I'll tell you, it's no picnic having three older brothers breathing down your neck. Loads of people who don't know what it's like think it's a blast – that I'm so lucky to have older brothers doting on me and wrapping me up in pretty lace and ribbons. It couldn't be any further from that. It's just… unfathomable. Inconceivable. _Ludicrous_.

I'm not allowed to wear skirts. Or halter tops. Or wear bikinis at the beach on those rare sunny days (not that I'd have much to hold it up with anyway). I've never been on a date with a boy, because they all inevitably end up bailing at the last minute, or develop sudden, unexplained bouts of food poisoning. By the fifth time it happened (a very choked up Tommy had called to announce that he was moving off the rez), I'd pretty much resigned myself to an eternity of spinster-dom.

And while I know I should be mad at the monster trio for it, I'm not. I've never really _liked_liked the guys that have asked me out, since it's always been… well, him. _Jared._

So much for a fresh start.

Dammit.

* * *

**Tuesday,****January 3rd**

The winter break finally came to an end as of yesterday. Back to school. Fun times.

Dragging myself out of the house today was no easy feat. I'd pretty much holed myself up for all of the break to avoid getting blasted by the icy wind. I love this place and all, but _GOD_, the weather. It never stops raining here, and we rarely (if ever) get any snow. It's just one long, cold rainy day after another.

Danny gave me and Charles a lift to the tribal school today, and you could tell he was glad to finally have me out from the pile of blankets on the couch. It's the middle of a _freezing_ winter. Just because he's got all those layers of muscle to shield him from the abominable cold doesn't give him the right to be all high and mighty with me and my blanket-hermit ways (he didn't say it out loud, but I _knew_ he just wanted me off the couch so he could dig for the remote and switch the channel to some boring sports match or something. Well, not in this lifetime. I've taken to deviously hiding it in my huge, misshapen woolly jumper, so he probably wouldn't be able to find it if he wanted to. _Ha!_)

Going back to the school had its merits, I'll admit. For one thing, I got to catch up with Jamie. She looked exactly the same as when I last saw her before winter break, which probably isn't saying much – it's only been a couple of weeks, after all. Even as best friends, we never do much outside of school, simply because there isn't that much two teenage girls can get up to in a town this small. Everyone knows everyone else. You couldn't keep a secret without half the rez finding out first.

Not that the closeness is a bad thing. For one, I get to spend all of my classes with the Boy-Who-Must-Not-Be-Mentioned, though he doesn't exactly know I exist yet. But no matter. Just sitting next to him is enough for me. And of course, the view. The view's fantastic. My desk's next to the window and his is right next to mine, so I get to tilt my head in his direction and privately admire him under the pretence of looking at the teacher.

It's not stalkerish, I swear. If you saw the face on this boy, you'd be staring, too.

…Well, Jamie says I'm a little biased. But who is she to judge? Honestly. She hasn't been _pining_after the boy for years. She doesn't _know_what it's like to be absolutely in love with a boy who's been oblivious to her affections for ages.

Anyway, he was looking a little pale today. It's kind of hard to tell with russet skin, but I've been staring at the lad for so many years that I've got the exact shade memorized. (Yeah, I know. I need a hobby.) His brow was all sweaty and it kind of looked like he was on the verge of passing out at times during class – thank goodness that didn't actually happen, but still – and he looked… _sick_. And I felt queasy just watching him.

I wanted to voice my concern, but I… I just _couldn't_. I haven't talked to him in years, even though we've basically grown up together and we share all our classes (the school's so small that there're only 20 people in my year alone). A million possible ways of asking him if he was alright ran through my head for that agonizingly long class, all of which followed with various horrifying scenarios where I made an absolute fool of myself in the process.

I ended up not saying anything.

Afterwards, at lunch, I asked Jamie about it. She gave me the oddest look.

"He wasn't feeling well?"

"Well – yeah. He looked really pale, and he was… I don't know, _shaking_, or something…"

Jamie rolled her eyes. "You were probably imagining it. You're obsessed enough as it is." Glimpsing my furrowed brows, the slightest of smiles tugged at the side of her mouth, and she elbowed me playfully in the ribs.

"Ouch!" I yelped. The girl's got some sharp elbows. "What was that for?"

"_That_," she retorted, looking not at all repentent for someone who'd just grieviously injured my person, "was for acting like a lovestruck fool. Jared's a big boy. He can take care of himself."

I gaped at her as the lunch line inched forward. "I am NOT," I hissed, surreptiously casting my eyes about in case anyone was within eavesdropping range, "acting like a _lovestruck fool_. I'm just… concerned! …As a friend!" But even as I faltered on the words, I knew I was lying through my teeth.

Jamie knew it, too. Never one to let go of this kind of thing, she pounced like a cat sighting a yarn ball in its moment of weakness. "A _friend_, huh?" She paused for effect. "And I suppose since you and Jared are all buddy-buddy, you guys have weekly sleepovers and heart-to-heart chats on the phone all the time, hmmm?"

…Is it normal to want to throttle your best friend?

He didn't come back to class after lunch, though. I turned around, briefly, to check if he'd changed seats without me noticing. Nope. He wasn't there. And Jamie was giving me an exasperated look from the back of the classroom. Oops.

I hope it's nothing serious, though. Maybe he's caught the winter flu that's been going around. Or it could've been something he ate. He's a big fan of fast food – all those burgers can't be good for him.

God, this is turning out to be another one of _those_ entries. Blast it all.

Something's just occurred to me. Hang on a sec.

**Tuesday, January ****3rd, later**

Well, I've confirmed it. I dug out some of my recent diaries from the box and re-read some of the early entries. They all mentioned "fresh starts" and how I'd stop obsessing over the Boy-Who-Must-Not-Be-Mentioned – and they were all very rousing entries, detailing on how I'd focus on other things to write/obsess about… only to revert back to the all too familiar worshipping vein a few entries later. I've got his last name scrawled all over the margins of some pages; I think I'd just die of embarassment if anyone found out.

Argh. I'm so pathetic.

**Tuesday, January 3rd, even later**

You know what? I'm not pathetic! I'll like whoever I damn well please, even if he doesn't like me back for now.

One day, I'm going to marry this boy. I'm sure of it.

* * *

**Wednesday, January 4th**

He didn't come to school today.

I think I actually paid more attention in class than I have for years. I took detailed notes like you wouldn't believe.

That's probably the only silver lining, though.

* * *

**Friday, January 6th**

Still not in school. Byron Keller's saying that he's got some highly contagious infection, or whatever.

I hope he's feeling better.

* * *

**Monday, January 9th**

Still not in school.

Has the boy _DIED_ and dropped off the face of the planet??

God, I hope not.

Was the only one to score full marks on the lit pop quiz today. Couldn't bring myself to care.

* * *

**Tuesday, January 10th**

I've given up all hope. I've also learned something from all of this. If you lower your expectations and expect nothing, you will never be disappointed.

It's been a week since I last saw him. I honestly didn't think it'd been that long, but well… it has.

And you know what? I'm alive. Just peachy. In fact, I think I've evolved to a newer, better version of myself, like in those cartoons where a turtle turns into a bigger turtle with water jets, or whatever. Except I'm not really a turtle, nor do I want water jets of any kind strapped onto my back and argh this is a terrible analogy so –

Kim Connweller, version 2.0. I'm an overachieving, straight A student, and I certainly don't know anything about obsessing over silly, oblivious boys who know nothing of my sheer awesomeness.

Fresh start, here I come!

* * *

**Wednesday, January 11th**

Went to school today, as cheery as can be. Jamie gave me a very skeptical look when I told her about the new and improved me, which had me a tad offended, I'll admit. Aren't best friends supposed to support you through thick and thin? Through ups and downs? Through sickness and in health?

I informed her of my master plan about moving on from my whole Jared phase, and she laughed. _Laughed!_ Like I hadn't just bared years and years of accumulated inner pain for her to see.

"_Kim_," she said in a tone of voice that suggested she was talking to a particularly slow five year old, "You say that now, but you'll probably fold like a cheap umbrella a few days later. It's happened before."

I sputtered at this. "It has _not_!"

She raised a knowing brow (I hate it when she does that. Seriously). "Oh? What about that time you said you were going to take up knitting –"

"I did, didn't I?"

"- you knitted half a sweater and ended up tossing it into the trash a week later. And that time when you said you were going to learn how to play the cello –"

"The teacher was _picking_ on me!"

" – did you ever get a refund for the cello? Oh, I can't remember… And the time when you said you were going to go jogging every morning to increase your stamina –"

"I got lost in the forest! It was _traumatizing_!"

" – I don't think _that_one even lasted two days. And there was that time when –"

"_Jamieeeee._" I whined. "You're supposed to be behind me on this! Why're you being so _mean_?"

She laughed again, and gave me a pat on the head, grinning. "Someone's got to tell you the truth, sweetheart. We can't all live in fantasy-land here."

_Well._ The _nerve._ Fine, I'll show her.

Fold like a cheap umbrella, indeed. Pfft. I'm a strong, independent woman. I don't need some _guy_to make my life complete. I'm so going to make Jamie eat her words when the week's over with. And then she'll have to beg for my forgiveness for ever doubting me, eh? No more of that "knowing eyebrow-raise" rubbish. Soon, it'll be my turn to act all high and mighty while she comes to me for relationship advice, and _I'll_ get to do that lone eyebrow-raise thing! _Ahahahahahahaha –_

Oh. Time for dinner.

* * *

**Thursday, January 12th**

I…

Oh god.

**Thursday, January 12th, later**

This is – I mean, I…

He just…

**Thursday, January 12th, LATE**

Alright, I think I've stopped hyperventilating.

No, wait –

Okay, I'm done. But I suppose I'd better keep the paper bag close at hand while I write this.

I went to school today, still determined to carry on with Operation Fresh Start (you know, so I could be cool and lord it over Jamie, officially the worst best friend in existence) and – oh, I don't know, my brain's an utter mess right now – he was there. In his seat. In all his oblivious boy glory.

Except it wasn't _Jared_. Not the Jared I knew, anyway. This Jared was… well, _huge_. He looked huger than Danny, and I didn't think that was possible. At first, I'd thought that it was Paul sitting in Jared's seat – Paul's a senior and he recently had some sort of crazy growth spurt that made him look like he was seventeen going on twenty-seven – and some dusty part of my mind was going, _oh no, Paul's been pushed back a year and now I'm going to have sit next to him for the rest of the term, what should I do?_

I moved closer. And my heart almost stopped.

It was _Jared._

Even with his added bulk (oh my god) and height (oh my god) and sharpened, harder features (oh my god oh my god), it was still him. The Jared I had grown up with was buried somewhere underneath all that muscle and _oh my god he's caught me looking and my legs feel funny and –_

I don't know how it happened, but the instant our eyes locked, my knees gave out on me. And if that wasn't embarrassing enough, he caught me. I have no idea how he made it over so fast, either. It must've taken it less than a second for him to cross the length of the classroom to where I was to grab me by the waist. Or maybe my mind was so fuzzy that I had a warped sense of time, or something. There's no way he could've moved that fast, which must either mean that my knees buckled in slow motion (oh _please_ no), or that my brain isn't processing signals properly. I'm leaning towards the latter.

Anyway. I… I don't exactly remember what happened exactly after that – everything was in a bit of a blur at that moment – but I do remember _warmth_. Not just regular body warmth, either._Furnace_ warmth. The next thing I knew, there were people all around me, closing in, their worried voices a faint echo in my ears. All the blood rushing to my head was making me a tad woozy at that point, and I'm pretty sure I didn't need a mirror to know that I resembled a ripe tomato.

"Kim? _Kim!_" Vaguely, I could make out Jamie's familiar (albeit blurred) face at the periphery of my vision.

I blinked dazedly, and just like that, the fog cleared.

And I realized two things.

One, that I was in the arms of a boy – a boy who was Jared but _not Jared_ at the same time – and two, that I must have had the knees of a sixty year old woman.

I have to admit, the latter upset me more than it should have.

It was around then that the mortification kicked in. I was caught in an ungainly semi-sprawl on the classroom floor, with some sort of red-hot poker burning through the clothes on my back. And in front of _Jared_, of all people. I had to get away.

Desperately willing the flush in my face to recede, I screwed my eyes shut for a moment and considered my options. Since it was highly unlikely that the ground was going to open up and swallow me whole, I decided that I'd get up, laugh it off as low blood pressure from skipping breakfast, and be done with the matter.

Unfortunately, that decision was taken out of my hands entirely when I found myself lifted (oh god, vertigo), bridal-style, off the ground and _oh, the walls are moving and where are we going_?

"I'm okay," I remember saying belatedly - a little foolishly, I suppose, considering the classroom and all the people in it were in the distance and were quickly moving out of earshot. I tried twisting about in my captor's arms, but he had quite the iron grip. I realized, then, that said captor was _Jared who was not Jared_, and I freaked out.

"Ja- Jared," I choked out, and for a moment, his step faltered as he dropped his gaze to mine. His eyes were like hot coals – I don't know how else to describe them. They were the same brown eyes that I remembered from all those years of growing up together in this tiny, tiny little town, but they'd changed, somehow. There was a trace of… madness, I think, in them, like there was something inside trying to _get out_, like…

I sound crazy, don't I? _This_ is crazy. I can't believe I'm putting this to paper. I've pinched myself on the arm at least twenty times since I've started, and the pain is real. The bruises are real. Which means this is real. Which means I've officially lost it.

While I'm still on my crazy high, I'm just going to get the rest of this out and off my chest so that I can… I don't know, wake up tomorrow and find out that everything was a dream. Yes. I'll do that.

… It turned out that he was taking me to the infirmary. The nurse sprang out of her seat as soon as she saw me (though, for some strange reason, my eyes were seeing her move at normal speed – I reckon my brain finally decided to mosey off its lawn chair and get some proper work done for once) and made a move that looked like she wanted to help me onto the one of the cots. Jared made some sort of weird, strangled noise at the back of his throat that had the both of us look at him, startled. Wordlessly, he carefully deposited me onto the closest mattress.

The nurse opened her mouth to speak, but I cut her off. It was all too much and I felt increasingly claustrophobic with her sudden proximity; Jared's immovable form crowding me on one side and hers on the other.

"There's nothing wrong with me," I said quickly, before she could start barraging me with potentially embarrassing questions in front of the boy I'd fantasized about marrying for so long. "Really. It's just the low blood pressure. I've had it for years."

Her lips thinned with something that looked like tolerant amusement, before she gave me a reassuring smile. "I'm sure that's all it is, dear. Now, why don't you lie back and relax for a bit."

At that, I felt Jared tense next to me. Which _definitely_ made it harder to relax.

I gave the nurse my best pleading look, putting all my heart into imploring _get this boy out of here before you start with the inquisition_and by god, I think the woman actually got the message.

She then proceeded to shoo a very reluctant Jared out of the room. Though I don't think "reluctant" might be the right word for it. The boy was near impossible to get rid of. It took a lot of threats and a final, "You don't want to be upsetting the patient, do you?" to make him leave. I stared at my hands, my face burning as I felt his gaze on me before, finally, the door shut.

At his departure, I let out a breath of relief I didn't know I'd been holding in, sagging into the misshapen pillow.

"Now, then," the nurse's dry voice snapped me back to reality, and I shot her a somewhat guilty look as she settled into a chair next to me. "Would you like to explain, Miss Connweller?"

And so I did. I gave her my formulated excuse – low blood pressure in the mornings, and all that, and I think even without telling her the actual reason she _knew_, like she was some sort of psychic or something. Weird.

The lovely psychic lady did take my blood pressure, which 'lo and behold, really _was_ a tad on the low side. The look on my face when I saw the reading must've been priceless, because she snorted.

"Drink more fluids," she said, in final parting, as she helped me off the cot. "I'd suggest you go home early for today, Miss Connweller – I'll ring in with your teachers and have them know. Can someone come and pick you up?"

"Oh," I said, hand already poised on the doorknob and ready to bolt. "I – er… yes."

And with a final rushed, "thank you", I opened the door and walked straight into a wall.

"GAH!" was my immediate response as I reflexively pressed my hands to my nose. I'd broken it once before, falling from the porch after an incautious step on a rainy day, and I'd been paranoid about breaking it again ever since. When I finally looked up, my palms still cupping my nose protectively, I saw Jared.

_He_ was the wall.

A very stricken-looking wall.

"Everything all right out there, Miss Connweller?" The nurse's concerned voice reached my ears, and I hastily turned around to reassure her in a slightly muffled voice that yes, I was fine. Except that I really wasn't, because _Jared was still there_ and _why on earth hasn't he gone back to class yet?_

"Er," I said eloquently, doing an awkward sort of side-shuffle to close the door to the infirmary behind me, and an even more awkward backstep so that I wouldn't have to crane my neck up… up… and up… to meet his gaze. "What's… up?"

(Yes, I know. My brain short-circuited. My nose was throbbing. I think those are pretty valid excuses, given that I'd just walked into the Quileute version of the Incredible Hulk.)

"_Kim_," he said. I never knew how much emotion could go into my name, but there it was. For a moment, we just stared at each other, with me gaping like a fish out of water and him staring down at me, his breaths so quick that it was like he'd just finished running a marathon.

"I… I need to go home," I said finally, more to break to uncomfortable silence than anything else. When it didn't look like he was going to say anything to that, I hastily looked down and caught sight of his fists, clenching and unclenching in agitation by his sides. For a gut-wrenching, heart-pounding moment, I wondered if he was mad at _me._

I didn't know where else to look that wouldn't make the situation even more awkward than it already was, so I settled for staring at my feet. His feet, rather. God, even his _shoes_ were huge. Was it something in the water on the rez?

"Um." My voice came out as a squeak; I was that nervous. "I guess I'll… bye." But before I could so much as turn away, his voice burst out and stopped me in my tracks.

"_Wait_."

I couldn't have left if I wanted to.

One of his hands moved up to his hair – a nervous habit of his I'd noted over the years –and something in me settled. This was the boy I'd fallen in love with. Sure, he was a little (a lot) different on the outside, but underneath that hardened, scary exterior, it was still _him_.

"Would you like a ride?"

My brain went into overdrive. "But… don't you have to go back to class?" Inwardly, I winced. I sounded like a truant officer. With the knees of a sixty year old woman.

"I…" – and I was promptly rewarded with the incredibly novel sight of seeing the boy of my dreams at a loss for words – "I… no." He cleared his throat. "My day just cleared up."

God, the boy is such a _liar_.

Well, two could play at that game. "My brother's coming to pick me up," I said, a little stiffly. To be honest, the less noble side of me was screaming, "Accept his offer, you ninny! You'll never get another chance like this!" But I had some modicum of restraint left, I suppose. The very notion of being trapped in an enclosed vehicle with him was making my stomach do somersaults and tumbles that would've put any Olympic gymnast to shame.

His eyes darkened slightly, though the expression on his face didn't change. "I'll wait with you until he comes, then."

_Drat. He's good._ "You… you don't have to."

"I want to."

_No, you don't!_ "I can wait for him by myself. I'm not some… _invalid_ you have to look after."

He looked a little pained at this, but didn't relent. "I'm going with you."

_Oh, for crying out loud._ Pursing my lips in barely concealed annoyance, I spun on my heel and walked purposefully down the hallway, my boots making satisfying _clack clack_sounds against the tiled floor. I rejoiced when I didn't hear the sound of footsteps behind me, then –

"You know, the main door's the other way."

Heat flooded my face. Without missing a beat (though it's kind of hard to tell with these things – I don't have much of a sense of rhythm), I whirled around and strode in the other direction. As I passed him, I thought I saw a trace of a grin on his face, though he tried to hide it when our eyes met.

_Argh!_ "Listen," I said a little breathlessly, trying to speed up the pace to throw him off, "You really don't have to do this. I'm perfectly –" _ew, don't step on the gum_ "- capable of walking myself to my brother's car."

God, he was keeping pace effortlessly. I needed to throw him off.

"Look!" I halted in my tracks suddenly, feeling the impact of his body slamming into the back of mine in a rush of heat and heart-gripping dizziness, before his arm shot out to keep me from pitching forward on my face. Whirling around and trying to ignore the sensation of his hand burning a brand onto my arm, I gazed up at him with the widest eyes I could muster. He just looked confused.

"Look," I repeated, pointing somewhere to my left, and in that brief, fleeting moment that his head turned to follow the direction of my finger, his grip loosened. I grabbed the opportunity and launched into a full-out dash towards the doors, heart pounding crazily in my chest with my hair whipping about my face as I finally found myself panting and heaving like a winded cow in the middle of the street. _Ha, I bet that showed –_

"What are you doing?"

_No. NO._ This wasn't happening. There was no way.

While I gaped at him dumbly and what I'm sure was a very attractive postion to behold – doubled over in exhaustion while he just _stood_ there, not a single hair out of place and not even breathing heavily, _damn it_ and _why was he laughing?_

"Would you just let me give you a ride home already?" he grinned, and his smile was like the sunrise.

I didn't have much left in me to keep protesting after that, to be frank. I'd already expended too much energy in my tiring (however brief) sprint, and his smile was making my legs feel like jelly.

I ended up following him at a snail's pace to the carpark – my calf muscles were screaming in agony and I barely had enough breath in my lungs as it was – it certainly didn't help that Jared kept looking over his shoulder at me, as if to make sure I wasn't going to make a run for it again.

Pssh. Like I could. Run for it, that is. Not that the thought didn't cross my mind. The mind was certainly willing, though the flesh was… inadequate. Way too inadequate.

He opened the truck door for me and waited patiently for me to crawl onto the passenger seat. When he was satisfied that I was buckled in, he shot me another heart-stopping grin and slid his keys into the ignition.

We rode in relative silence for the journey, with him asking the occasional, "Do I turn left here? Or up ahead?" But other than that, I was able to lean back and try to catch my breath over the loud thudding of my heart.

It wasn't long before we finally pulled into the street where I lived. When the house came into view, I felt my stress levels skyrocket. Oh god. What if Danny was home? Or Benji? What if they saw Jared dropping me off and got the wrong idea? The last thing I needed was some testosterone-fueled brawl taking place on the front lawn.

"Jared," I blurted out, making him hit the brakes in surprise. My body jolted forwards slightly, though the belt kept me in place.

"What's wrong?" he asked, his eyes widened slightly with worry as he raked his gaze quickly over my body before returning them to my face. I felt my cheeks warm in response. "Are you alright? Is something wrong?"

"This is my stop," I said faintly, avoiding his gaze. "I… thank you. For the lift."

I watched with detached interest as the large hand resting on his thigh clenched into a fist once more, making the veins on his arm pop. It was terrifying and fascinating at the same time.

A lengthy pause followed, and I found myself holding my breath for a reply.

"Do you want me to walk –"

"No! I mean, uh, you don't have to. I'm fine. Really. Thanks for the ride. And uh… thanks. Yeah." My words came out in a rush, and I wanted to slap myself for babbling like I did – there went my mortification quota for the day. I was clearly on a roll.

Before I could make an even bigger fool of myself, I hurriedly let myself out of the truck, stumbling a little when my boots hit the pavement. It took me three tries to get his truck door shut (I'd like to say that I managed it all on my own, but Jared must have taken pity on me after witnessing my pathetic attempts and reached over to pull it shut from inside. Argh).

I had to resist breaking out into a flat-out run to the house, though I'm sure that my nerves must have showed, somehow. I could feel his eyes boring into the back of my head as I fumbled with my keys and let myself in, finally collapsing in an over-stressed, exhausted heap against the door as I let it close swiftly behind me.

And _that_, diary, is why I've decided to switch to being home-schooled. I'll bring up the topic with Ma tomorrow.

Good night.

* * *

**Next:**_**Allegretto**_


	2. Allegretto

**Thanks so much to all those who reviewed the last chapter! They really made my week significantly less terrible - it's the pre-exam study break, so I've been buried under mounds and mounds of textbooks. Tis a sad life I lead.**

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* * *

  
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_**2. Allegretto**_

_**xxx**_

**Friday, January 13th**

So.

I was going to bring up home-schooling with Ma at the breakfast table today, but I guess everyone else was more concerned with pumping me full of fluids to make sure my blood pressure stayed within the "normal range".

And while I do agree that all this familial concern is very touching and all, it got a bit annoying after I realized that my cup of orange juice was being refilled… and refilled… and refilled.

"_Guys_," I said, properly exasperated. "I can't drink this much juice. It's going to make me sick."

"_Kim_," Benji said, mirroring my level of exasperation and scrunching his face up in what I can only assume was an imitation of my annoyed look. "We can't have you fainting left and right now, can we?"

_Argh._ "For your information," I snapped testily, "I did not _faint_. My knees gave out. If anything, you lot should be signing me up for some reconstructive knee surgery, not –" I flailed my free arm about for emphasis, narrowly missing my not-so-magically refilling glass "- stuffing me with gallons and gallons of juice!"

"That's not what the nurse said," Danny said gruffly, levelling me with one of his _looks._ You know. The kind that deflates all your righteous indignation and makes you want to curl up in a recalcitrant ball in corner. "I nearly had a heart attack when she called the garage and said you'd already left for home."

Next to me, Charles was in the midst of battling Benji for the last sausage on the platter. "How'd you get home, anyway?" I could hear Ma making a disapproving noise as she piled more eggs onto his plate.

_Oh god. Don't think about it don't think about it. _"I… uh… I walked."

Utter silence followed. I braced myself.

"You _WHAT_?!" Wow. Synchronized. And _loud._

"I… I walked," I said, lifting my chin defiantly, avoiding looking anyone in the eye as I took a reluctant sip of juice.

Then Ma got all concerned, and well – Danny was furious, Benji and Charles incredulous and staring at me like I'd officially gone bonkers (which, on some level, was probably true) – I didn't get to bring up home-schooling.

Blast it all.

And because I _really_ didn't want to go back to school after yesterday's fiasco involving my crap knees and the Boy-Who-Must-Not-Be-Mentioned and all that, I lied _again_.

You know what they say. It's a slippery slope.

We were all clearing the table after all the morningtime melodrama (Charles and I were stacking plates, Danny was keeping the milk and juice in the fridge, and Benji was stationing himself at the sink while Ma went to get changed for work – we've done this for so long we've become quite the well-oiled machine) and I finaly bit down on my lip, mustering the nerve to say, "Actually…"

Danny picked up on the hesitation in my voice, and turned to meet my gaze briefly before effortlessly lifting the lot of plates and cutlery out of my withering arms. "What is it?"

"I'm not feeling too hot today. Could I… notgotoschooltoday?" The last part came out in a rush. _Keep your eyes wide. Wider! Look imploring! IMPLORING._

Charles bumped my shoulder none-too-gently as he pushed past me to make his way around the table with his own load of plates. He let out a derisive snort. "Please. Weren't you saying earlier that it was just your kn- _OW!_" (Hey, it's a confined space. Accidents happen.) "What that that for?!"

Ignoring him, I refocused my gaze on Danny, giving my best _you believe me, don't you _look. For a heart-wrenching moment, I thought he was going to catch me in my lie and bundle me off to school with Charles, fully clothed or no – and I saw his jaw loosen a fraction. _Weakness._ I had it in the bag. I just needed to play my cards right.

"I'm just not so sure we should be leaving you unsupervised here…" I fought the urge to roll my eyes. I was _sixteen_, for crying out loud. I wasn't about to set the house on fire on start licking the floor.

Danny wasn't done, though. "… especially since we're supposed to be keeping an eye on you for the next few days."

For a moment, I saw the worry flicker in his eyes, and I immediately felt guilty for lying to him. I was ready to cave right there – say that I maybe I'd feel better getting out of the house and going to school after all – and Danny finally said, "Maybe you'd like to come to work with me?"

His eyebrows were raised expectantly, the familiar sounds of the water running and Charles jostling Benji for position resounding in the tiny kitchen. In that moment, relief flooded my entire body. _Follow Danny to work. No school. No Jared. No awkward confrontations. YES!_

"Okay!" I blurted out, impulsively moving forward to hug Danny tightly around the waist. He jerked slightly in surprise, though his hand came up to rest on the top of my head a second later.

"Alright." He sounded bemused.

Caught up in a rush of affection for my grouch of an older brother, I pressed my face into his worn shirt and unabashedly declared, "I love you, Danny."

He laughed, and I felt the rumble of his baritone thrumming through the comfortable material of his shirt. "Love you too, kid. Now get off of me so I can get changed for work."

Which is how I ended up curled up on the office couch of the garage Danny works at. I must say, it's not too bad here. I'd thought that following Danny to work at his garage meant I'd be sitting on a tire heap dodging errant spanners (don't ask.) The office is nice and clean, with no traces of rotting food or man-sweat or well, signs to indicate inhabitation by men, in general -

Oh. Someone's calling for me.

**xxx**

**Friday, January 13****th****, later**

Ughh. That was Danny's boss. He wasn't too happy about having me bask about on the cushy sofa while the rest of the guys were outside doing all the work. ("I'm _sick_."_ "_It won't kill you to shuffle some papers around, kid." The man is heartless. _Heartless._)

So now I've been relegated to paperwork, which is just about the most boring job in existence. For a small business, it sure has a lot of receipts and records of car parts and past transactions and _argh, if my failing knees aren't going to kill me then this definitely will._

I hear footsteps approaching. Back to work.

**xxx**

**Friday, January 13****th****, even later**

You know, this actually isn't such a bad job. Paperwork, I mean. Once you get over the size of the paper mountain and fall into a pattern of sorts, it becomes… dare I say it – fun? Alright, maybe that was a bit of a stretch._ Relaxing_. Yes, that's the word.

All my obsessive-compulsive tendencies came in handy, for once. I had to spread out all the papers on the floorspace available to get my bearings first, naturally, which gave Danny's boss a minor heart attack when he dropped in a moment later a check on my progress. I don't think he quite expected to find me happily crouched in the middle of the room with every square inch of his previously immaculate office covered in yellowing invoices and scrap receipts.

It took a fair bit of reassuring on my part to convey to him that it was my method of organizing things, and yes, I was going to clean it all up before the end of the day.

Pssh. People these days. They're so _untrusting._

One thing about all this filing and organizing, though. It takes my mind off unpleasant things sitting at the back of my mind, like how I'm supposed to get out of school on Monday (and for the rest of the term, for that matter), or how I'm supposed to react the next time I run into Jared – which _will _eventually happen; there's just no hiding from a person in a town this small. Not that I'm saying he'll actively seek me out, or… I don't know. Maybe he was having a temporary bout of insanity. Maybe _I _was having a temporary bout of insanity and none of that actually happened.

This is giving me a headache. I'd go lie down on the couch, but it's buried under last year's tax returns.

* * *

**Saturday, January 14****th**

I was going to write again last night, but I was too tired.

Paperwork is tiring. Satisfying, but dead tiring. I feel asleep once I hit the bed, not even bothering to get a change of clothes or grab dinner. I was just that exhausted.

Ma said someone called and asked for me a bunch of times, but I guess it's kind of hard to answer the phone when you're unconcious. It was probably Jamie, with the books I oh-so-cleverly forgot to take home with me on Thursday. Whatever. I'll call her back later, maybe.

I'm going to take a nap. And then I'm going to laze around for the rest of the day and watch some TV. There's bound to be some good reruns on.

* * *

**Sunday, January 15****th**

I lead a cursed life.

There's no other explanation for it. I must've been a very evil, evil person in my past life because no one else I know gets this kind of crap twice in a week. Twice!

I'll elaborate.

The day started off fairly normal, I suppose. As normal as it gets around here, anyway. Danny went off to work again and Charles and Benji were getting ready for their weekly football game with the boys (or whatever it is Y chromosomes do when they congregate. Chest pounding? Butt scratching? Nose picking?) Ma gave me the usual grocery list, some money, and told me to go paint the town red.

I think she was kidding. She has a warped sense of humor, my Ma.

Anyway, I got to use Benji's car to drive into town, since on Sundays some of his friends come over to pick him and Charles up for their weekly guy outings. I don't really mind doing the groceries alone, since it means I get some time to myself for once (though I have to admit, driving in the rain isn't exactly my forte. My palms get all sweaty and I curse out loud when I have to navigate turns and stuff. It's not a pretty sight).

I managed to make it to the store in one piece, though. By then, the rain was pouring down in sheets and I could barely make out the trees in front of me.

I suppose it around then that my seemingly normal day took a turn for the worse. No, not worse. Worse doesn't even _begin_ to cover it. Worse implies that things could go further downhill from there, which they couldn't. The moment I stepped out of the car, my day hit rock-bottom.

_Jared_ was there.

Now, don't get me wrong – I still fancy the pants off this boy, but after that mortifying day where I did nothing but humilate myself, _over and over again_ by collapsing and running down hallways and stammering and making a general ass out of myself, you might probably understand why I don't want to be anywhere _near _the guy for the next couple of weeks… or years. I don't know. However long it'll take for me to erase those horrifying memories from my mind, I guess. (Never?)

"_Kim._" That tone of voice again. God, _déjà vu_.

He looked almost exactly the same as when I last saw him – tall and forbidding and scary, an unfathomable expression etched on his face. Only this time, he was drenched from head to toe, and…

Shirtless.

That's right. Shirtless.

It was 9 degrees out. Not Celcius, either. _Farenheit_.

At that point, caught between a rock and some very nicely-defined abs, my brain imploded on itself.

It was an embarassingly long time before I managed to reattach my jaw and manage a very weak "Hello" and a weird sort of half-wave, as I finally tore my eyes away from his bare stomach to marginally safer territory – his face.

God, his face. I could go on and on about how his jaw looked or how I'd noticed that his cheekbones became _really_ prominent after losing all the roundedness of his youth, but I won't. My cheeks are burning even as I write all of this down. It feels like I'm about to catch on fire. I need to get this out, fast.

"Do you…" I tried not to flush, failing miserably. "Do you want my coat? You look… cold." And right after the words flew out of my mouth, I wanted to slam my head against the nearest flat surface. I needed to get away from him, before I said anything else that made me more of a retard in his eyes.

"You weren't in school on Friday."

His gaze was too piercing, too intense, and staring into his eyes was a bit like staring at the sun without a visor on. I hastily ducked my head to focus on the unevenly cemented floor. _Oh. He's barefoot. _In the recesses of my mind, I recalled a heady conversation I'd had with Jamie a while back on one of our movie nights – "You know what they say about guys with big feet, right?" Giggling. "Big - "

_No. So not going there._

There was a heavy sort of silence in the air as I struggled with trying to find an answer that wouldn't make it sound like I'd been trying to avoid him. Inner Kim was frantically screaming _say something, anything or you'll just make it worse_ and I finally came up with –

"I filed tax returns on Friday."

Jared blinked. A beat, then – "What?"

And because I've already taken the plunge and there _really_ wasn't much else I could do to make the situation crappier than it already was, I let the babble take over. "Invoices, packing lists, payment vouchers, the works. Did you know that small businesses need to earn less than $100,000 a year to qualify for tax exempt status?"

He didn't look like he knew what would be a good reply to that, but he did crack a smile. "No, I didn't." His voice look on a more serious tone as he sighted the damp grocery list clenched in my fist. "You're here alone?"

"Yeah," I said, secretly relieved that the conversation was being steered away from tax returns. I didn't think I'd be able to regurgitate more than what I already had on the matter. "Yeah, I am."

Some undecipherable emotion flashed across his face, and he raked a slightly shaking hand through his hair, before saying, "Do you mind waiting here for a minute? Just… stay right here. Don't go anywhere."

Wordlessly, I nodded.

I could only gape as he bounded off into the rain, which didn't look like it was going to let up anytime soon. _Where was he going? _

I didn't ponder too long on his whereabouts, though. Alone, I could finally breathe and sort out my jumbled thoughts, which had become a right mess the moment he'd appeared. I hadn't counted on running into him today, since he was normally one of the Y chromosomes that attended the La Push weekly sports gathering with my brothers. Having him turn up out of the blue… threw me off.

Before I could chicken out and head back to the car, Jared reappeared. He was still drenched to the bone, though he was _– _bless the boy – fully dressed this time. Though what he was doing running about shirtless and barefoot in La Push in the first place was beyond me.

"Well, shall we?" His words jolted me out of my inner ramblings, and I was startled to see him stride forward and pull open the shop door for me.

I could only stare at him with wide eyes as the sound of the rain faded to a dull roar in my ears, droplets splashing violently from nearby puddles and slowly soaking through my jeans. "Jared… what are you doing?"

His smile was so beautiful that it _hurt_. "I'm helping you with your grocery shopping." At my blank look, his expression shifted to one of confusion. "Unless… you don't want me to?"

"NO!" The word was out before I could tamp down on it, and I quickly realized how my vehement reply could have been taken for something else entirely. "I mean, I… I – It'd be great," I finished, lamely. "But you don't have to."

"I want to," he said, and that was that.

Having him help me out with all the lifting and the reaching for items on high shelves and the steering of the trolley – well… it was a bit odd, to be honest. I pretty much just stood around and read items off the list while he did all the work. He kept shooting me all these really weird looks when he thought I wasn't paying attention, too. Which I was, by the way. It's kind of hard to let your guard down when the guy of your dreams is standing so close that you can _feel _the heat radiating off him in waves.

The whole scene was domestic and surreal at the same time, delving into my oldest, deepest fantasies where I'd imagined the both of us older and married and doing all sorts of everyday things together. The world around me twisted and narrowed, until all I was aware of was our laughter, his smile, and the easy banter we'd picked up as the trolley gradually filled. My heart swelled.

"What's next on the list?" he asked, deftly snagging cans of pasta sauce from a shelf.

"Uh –" I said, squinting a little to decipher Ma's messy handwriting, "Eggs. Right over there."

We both reached for the eggs at the same time. My hand closed over the carton first, but the shock of having his scalding flesh directly on mine made me flinch away reflexively, knocking the egg carton over in the process. In that split-second, I watched in open-mouthed horror as the carton was roughly jerked off the shelf, falling, falling… there was nothing I could do to stop what was looking to be a very messy accident…

… and he caught it. Not in the palm of his hand, either. _Between his fingers_.

This is where it got really weird. _Really_ weird. Like nothing had happened, Jared righted himself, put the carton of almost-ex-eggs into the trolley, and _strolled away._

_Strolled away_, like it was no big deal. Like he did it all the time.

"Jared."

He turned to look at me, his face tightening when he saw my strangled expression.

"How…" My mouth was very dry. All of a sudden, I needed to _know. _I needed to know if it was me being crazy or if it was him, if it had been him all the time with his insanely quick reflexes or _oh god, I was definitely the crazy one for even __asking__, _but whatever it was, I needed to _know_. "How did you _do _that?"

There. It was out.

His expression tensed slightly, before it cleared and he gave me a very blank look. "Do… what, exactly?"

I felt a surge of anger at his obvious, feigned ignorance – I couldn't believe he was trivializing this! "You know what I meant," I retorted, a little snappishly. "That _thing_, with the eggs, and… and earlier, too when you practically – oh, _I don't know_ – _flew_ across the classroom to catch me – how'd you do it?" My heart was thudding crazily in my chest – I hated confrontations, but _dammit_, I don't think a horde of stampeding buffalo could have stopped me in that heated, desperate moment. "I'm not crazy, am I? Tell me… tell me I'm not going crazy."

"…You're not going crazy."

I glared at him.

Jared refused to meet my gaze. Instead, he fiddled with the cuff of his still-damp sleeve. The silence that hung between us was palpable. And then, finally – "I'm not sure you'd believe me if I told you."

Emboldened by the adrenaline rushing through my veins, I pushed forward. "Try me."

He looked wracked by indecision, his jaw tightening almost mechanically as he finally raised his eyes to mine. "Kim, I…" He faltered, and dragged his hand up through his short, buzzed hair again. His expression hardened, and I held my breath.

This was it. I could feel the truth bubbling up around us, clawing it's way out through all the tension and the suffocating silence, and _shit, should he be doubled over and shaking like he's about to have an epileptic fit?_

The image of Jared bent over the the trolley, taking gasping breaths and shaking like an alcoholic without his gin spurred me into action. Instinctively, I moved forward to his side to – oh, I don't know, steady him or get him to lie down while I called for help, but the shaking only got worse when I curled my numb hands around his arm.

"_Outside_," he croaked. He was hunched over in pain, face contorted into an expression of sheer agony. "Outside. I need… outside."

"Okay." I was shaking from nerves, too – but looking at Jared's pain tore at my heart. It steadied me, somehow, and I managed to hoist the arm in my grasp over my shoulders. It was _burning_. As if on autopilot, I sort of half-staggered, half-steered him along the aisle, passing a very surprised Mary Otoe at the cashier on our way out the door.

The icy wind hit me like a slap to the face, causing me to blink momentarily in disorientation. I remember turning my head to look at how Jared was faring, hoping beyond hope that whatever fit he was having would magically subside now that I'd done what he'd wanted. My heart plummeted. If anything, he looked _worse_ than before.

"Jared," I began, touching my fingers to his burning hand, a sense of crippling helplessness washing over me, "What's –" I never got to finish.

He was gone.

No goodbyes, no explanations, no _thanks for helping me out there, Kim, didn't think I'd make it_, nothing. I squinted into the heavy fog, the rain a distant pounding in my ears, but there wasn't a trace of him in sight.

I don't know how I made it home with all the groceries in tow, to be honest. The entire time, I felt like breaking down and bursting into tears, but I held it in somehow.

I still haven't cried.

Kept all the groceries. Ma left a note saying that she was going to be at Sue Clearwater's for a bit, which is fine with me. I'm pretty sure if she were here, I'd be in her arms and bawling my eyes out. So I guess this is good.

It stopped raining.

Lying on the couch. Am somewhat shell-shocked from the whole experience. Don't think it's quite sunk in yet.

The phone's ringing off the hook. Checked the caller ID, but it wasn't a number I recognized. Didn't pick up.

It kept ringing. Stopped. Then started again. And again. God, this is getting annoying. Can't a girl recover in peace around here? Is it too much to ask??

Hmm. I reckon I might've tugged on the phone cord a little hard there, because I ripped it clear out of the wall.

…Danny's going to _kill_ me.

Huh. I think I just saw something move outside the window – it looks sort of brownish-blackish, and strangely enough, it's furry and oh, are those paws

OH GOD THERE'S A BEAR ON THE FRONT LAWN

**xxx**

**Sunday, January 15****th****, LATER**

Okay, calm down. So what if you're trapped in a house with no cell, no internet, and no working phone while there's possibly a MAN-EATING BEAR camped out on your front lawn?

There's no need to panic. Deep breaths.

OH GOD OH GOD OH GOD!!

THERE IS A BEAR. A _BEAR_. Not one of those fairytale bears that sleeps in a bed and gets crabby when you eat its porridge, either.

A real, honest-to-goodness, live BEAR. And (I think) it's still out there. I don't think it's seen me – I rolled off the couch ages ago and I'm presently crouched in the kitchen, shaking in my fuzzy slippers.

_Think_, Kim. What would Danny do? Heck, what would my ancestors do? Light a smoke signal? Shoot poisoned darts? Charge at it with a spear in hand?

NO. That will not do. I'm terrified, but I haven't completely lost it. I can't light a fire to save my life. I don't think velcro darts dipped in toilet bleach is going to cut it. And the closest thing we've got to a spear in this house is the poker we use for the fireplace.

Actually, that could work. If I snuck out behind some bushes –

No.

Okay, this is insane. What am I going to do?! I've _seen_ what these bears are capable of on the National Geographic. They eat berries and anything that moves. I'm not a berry, but I'm pretty sure I fall under the category of _things that_ _move._

Oh, god. What about Ma and Danny and Benji and Charles? They're bound to come home eventually. What, then? What if the bear's just… I don't know, _sitting_ there, waiting for its next meal to come strolling by? And _oh, look at that! A nice Quileute boy. It must be my lucky day!_

I CAN'T LET THAT HAPPEN!!

**xxx**

**Sunday, January 15****th****, LATER LATER**

The Last Will and Testament of Kim Connweller, dated January 15th, 2006

1) To my mother, Kimberlyn, I leave you all my worldly possessions that I haven't already bequeathed to others (see below). I love you so much, Ma. You never got mad at me, even when I did the stupidest things. I hope you'll be able to lead a long, happy life without me.

2) To my brother, Danny, I leave you all my savings. They're hidden under a loose floorboard in the corner of my room, next to my desk. It's not much, but I hope you'll appreciate that I managed to scrimp and save up fair bit of my meager allowance over the years. I know you'd hate letting perfectly good money go to waste.

3) To my brother, Benji, I leave you my book collection. You were the one to read to me when I was a kid, and I've always loved you for it. Though you might not have the time to read any more, with your busy work schedule and stuff. But with one less mouth to feed, maybe you'll be working less? Unless you've got to do overtime to pay for the funeral costs, in which case I am very sorry for it (I know you hate working overtime).

4) To my brother, Charles, I leave you all my CDs. Though you've probably got half of them scattered around in that mess you call a room already. No matter. Sorry I was such a brat for yelling at you to stop leaving your crap all over the place and borrowing my stuff. You're a cool brother, just not a very fastidious one. And you'd probably spend less time looking for your things in the morning if you'd pick up after yourself once in a while. I'm just saying.

5) To my best friend, Jamie, I leave you all my clothes, and that rhinestone belt I know you've been lusting after ever since I got it as a birthday present last year. Also, I entrust you with the task of disposing (preferably via incineration) of all the materials in THE SHOEBOX in my cupboard. You know the one. Thanks. You've been a swell friend, though you can get rather annoying and I do want to strangle you sometimes for the things that come out of your mouth but ANYWAY. I love you.

6) To Jared, I leave you my heart. Even though I was pretty pissed at you earlier for just up and leaving me like that at the store, I've forgiven you. In face of certain death, I've seen the bigger picture – thanks for carrying me to the infirmary. And giving me a ride home. And helping me with the shopping, though you didn't really stick around for the last part. Anyway. I just wanted you to know that I've loved you for the past ten years, and will continue to love you from beyond the grave.

…

Okay, this is it. I'm going to do it.

I'm going out there.

In the event that I don't make it back (of which there is a high probability), let it be known that I died a noble death.

Right.

_Oh god, __I can't believe I'm actually going to do this._

_

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**Liked**** it? Hated it with the intensity of a thousand suns? Let me know what you think! I would be eternally grateful – though admittedly, not to the point of giving away firstborns or anything like that– but I will offer cookies! Triple chocolate fudge cookies fresh out of my neighbor's oven :D**

**xxx**

**Malice Cat**

**Next: **_**Agitato**_


	3. Agitato

**I suck.**

**Sorry for the abysmally slow update! ****My love life is going haywire and most days I'm torn between twirling in a circle and stabbing myself with a fork (not simultaneously, of course.) **

**Oh, and can I say how absolutely grateful I am to those who left me such lovely reviews**** for the last chapter? Namely: megagenie, fireylight, Luci-Marlena, Kat, angel-cake, 42****nd**** Backbone, Maniacinthemaking, and Kae-Lae - you're all made of awesome. For serious.**

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_**3. Agitato**_

_**xxx**_

**Sunday, January 15th**

My head hurts.

It's pounding and throbbing like you wouldn't believe – a bit like having seven mining dwarves trying to dig a tunnel from one ear canal to the next, I should think.

Urgggh.

There's something wrong with me.

Not just physically, either (though now that I think about it, there's plenty of that to go around as well). No, the thing that's worrying me the most right now is that – well…

I can't seem to remember how I got back home.

Oh, I remember leaving the house and running like a madwoman into the forest after realizing that the bear on the front lawn might have been a cross between a rabid dog and a hippo, if something of the sort might be imagined, and I _swear_, the only thing racing through my mind was, "Those are huge teeth you have there, Grandma." Not _watch out for that branch there, Kim Connweller!_ or _if you're going to be running out to face a bear in a fit of insanity, you really should've worn more appropriate shoes_, _no?_ In retrospect, I probably should've thought my plan through before I went barging out like a crazed lamb to the sacrifice altar.

I'll admit that I had a bit of a nervous breakdown before – in between all the hyperventilating and the futile attempts to reconnect the phone cord to the wall, my half-assed plan to lure the bear/wolf/hippo away from the house turned out to be pretty… well, stupid. And I'm not a stupid girl. I ace most of my classes. All my teachers love me. I think and rationalize before doing things. I manage the math society as co-president. Granted, there're only about 3 people in the club, but still…

Anyway, my initial plan was to charge out with a bag of raw meat from the fridge, toss it as far into the forest as I could, and run like hell to the Clearwater's house down the road while the bear was otherwise occupied.

I'm guessing the bear didn't like chicken.

I'm not even sure if it's a bear at this point – to be honest, I kind of lost my wits about me when I stepped out realised that

a) I throw like a girl

b) Frozen chicken does not travel far when the wind is not on your side

c) I can effectively cross **shotput medalist** off my list of potential careers.

I hadn't really counted on the bear ignoring the meat (which had landed pathetically a few feet in front of the driveway) and practically _stalking_ towards me, intent written all over its furry face. In that single, heart-stopping moment, I reached a decision.

I ran.

Straight into the dense forest, fuzzy slippers be damned. My heart was racing, my lungs were on overdrive, and all I could focus on was the uneven terrain under me (_oh god don't fall_) and the icy wind whipping against my skin. The only sound I could hear was my ragged breathing as I stumbled gracelessly over logs and moss and decaying leaves, my muscles _aching_ as I pushed forward, hyper-aware of a larger, _growling_ presence approaching from behind –

- and then I tripped and landed on my face.

I'm sure it wasn't pretty. I felt something hard and sharp slam into my forehead and unbearable pressure on one of my eyelids – an aptly placed rock, maybe – but instead of blinding pain, all I could focus on was the very real fact that I was about to be eaten alive by a bear. My bloodied carcass probably wouldn't turn up for _days_. And I'd forgotten to include my Aunt Millia in my will.

I cracked an eyelid open, and promptly wished I hadn't.

That… _thing_ was staring right at me. It couldn't have been more than three feet away. I was acutely aware of my labored breathing filling the eerie quiet of the forest.

"Don't kill me," I choked out. "I'm... I'm too young to die."

Its response was to move a massive paw forward. I dimly noted that it was roughly the size of the _Encyclopaedia Britannica._This was not reassuring in the least.

I could feel the blood rushing into my head as the world tipped on its side, making my vision go haywire as I struggled to right myself, practically taking my eye out in the process as I frantically grappled with the slippery, leaf-ridden ground. The last thing I remember thinking was _ooh, blood, that can't be good_, before I passed out.

When I woke up, I was back in my bed. Bruised, dirty, and buried under layers and layers of blankets – throws and quilts I didn't even know we owned were piled on top of me. It was a bit like waking up under a mound of rubble (albeit, the fluffy kind) and then finding out that you'd just bled all over your favorite sheets. Not the best way to regain conciousness.

Oh god. I just caught a glimpse of my face in the dresser mirror, and I look like _hell._ My right eye is swollen. There's a huge cut across my forehead (which accounts for all the blood, I suppose), and there's dirt and detritus of all kinds poking out of my hair. I look like some sort of poster child for domestic abuse.

DANNY'S HOME SHIT SHIT SHIT

* * *

**  
Monday, January 16****th**

A list of reactions to Kim Connweller, new poster child of domestic abuse:

_DANNY_

"The fu… Who the hell did this to you?!"

"Oh god, Danny. You have to listen. I just got chased by this huge bear thing into the forest, and the next thing I know I'm back in my bed, which is _impossible_ unless I somehow managed to teleport back and I think I ruined my pillow –"

"In the car. _Now._ I'm taking you to a hospital."

"Hospital? No! Wait, Danny –" I didn't get to continue, though. Danny unceremoniously hoisted me up into the air, and before I knew what was going on, I was being bundled into the car.

"Hey," I began weakly, but stopped once I caught a glimpse of the stony look on Danny's face. The muscles on his arm were clenched tightly, and for a moment, I was hit with a wave of déjà vu when I recalled an all-too-similar situation with Jared a few days before.

Ugh. Jared. What would he make of all this? Would he be shocked, apathetic, repulsed? I didn't even want to think about it.

"Danny," I tried again. "There's… there's a crazed animal in the forest. I think it wanted to eat me. I mean, it was camped out on our _lawn_."

His voice was tight when he finally responded. "On our lawn."

"Yeah," I continued, morale slightly boosted by the fact that he wasn't grabbing me by the shoulders and checking up with the nearest asylum for vacancies. "It was the size of a hippo, or maybe even a rhino. Though I think hippos and rhinos might kind of fall in the same weight class… but anyway. It was _crazy_, Danny. It totally ignored the chicken I sort of threw at it, then it came after me when I ran into the forest –"

"You _ran_ into the _forest_?" he demanded, his gaze catching mine in the rearview mirror.

I backpedaled frantically. "It _chased_ me in. I had no choice! Its _teeth_ and _claws _and – oh my god, I should be dead now, shouldn't I? I mean, it was going to eat me, then I blacked out and I don't remember how I got back, unless I didn't really get back and all this is just an optical illusion cooked up by some sadist deity out there trying to haze me before I pass over to the other side."

Silence.

"Oh my god. It's true, isn't it? I'm dead. I knew it. You're not Danny. You're not even _real_." Feeling the beginnings of a hysteria starting to set in, I groaned and leaned forward in the seat. Damn, my head _hurt_.

The car jerked to a halt, and I practically toppled headlong into the dashboard. Thankfully, Danny's steadying arm prevented further untimely damage to my person, and before I could so much as mutter "killer hippo", I was being whisked through the double doors of the hospital and lifted onto a gurney.

"I think she hit her head on something," I heard Danny say to a concerned looking nurse. "She's been talking about some hippo or other mauling her in the forest –"

"I didn't say hippo!" I broke in. "I said it was the _size _of a hippo. If I had to guess what kind of animal it was, it'd have to be a cross between a wolf and a bear. And a rhino. And maybe a tiger."

"You just lie back and rest, dear," the nurse said, jabbing something it to my arm. I let out an undignified yelp and tried to jerk my hand back, but she had an iron grip of some sort on it.

I was about to shoot her an offended look, but I guess what she shot into my veins must've been some potent stuff – any objection I had died away as I gave in to the lethargy and passed out.

_M__A_

"Oh my. Baby, what happened? Sue drove me right over when I got the call – is that _blood_ on your face? And -"

"Ma, I'm fine." Though I really wasn't – the stitches on my forehead were proof of that. But I _needed _ to get my point across. "There's a crazy animal in the forest, Ma – its got huge teeth and even its paws are huge, and it didn't like the chicken I threw at it so it ended up chasing me into the forest –"

The nurse and my Ma exchanged looks. You know, the kind of look that says _I hope you don't mind if I sedate your daughter, Mrs. Connweller, because I am sadistic and I won't stand for your daughter reopening her stitches even though she has potentially earth-shattering news to relay _and _Sure, why not_?

The next thing I know, the nurse is putting something into my IV and giving me a reassuring smile as my eyelids flutter shut.

Bitch.

_JAMIE_

"What on earth happened to you?!"

I ignored Jamie's shriek, grabbing her by the shoulders and staring solemnly into her eyes. "Jamie, have I gone crazy?"

"What? No!" She paused, eyes widening as she took in my battered face. "Kim, what _happened_?"

I sucked in a breath. If anyone was going to believe me, Jamie was it. "I was chased into a forest by a bear."

"A _bear?_ What the… Kim –"

"Or maybe it wasn't a bear. It did look a bit like a hippo. And maybe a bit like a wolf. What does that make it? A bear-hippo? Hippo-wolf? Bear-wolf? Haha. Beowulf. Wasn't that a horrible movie?"

At that, Jamie pressed a cool palm to my temple, carefully avoiding the bandage adorning my forehead. I continued babbling.

"…and it was huge, Jamie. HUGE. I swear, if your car broke down you could totally ride it to work. That's how huge it was."

Jamie didn't even bat an eyelash. "Why do you have a black eye? Did someone punch you in the face?"

I swatted her arm away in annoyance. "You're missing the point," I hissed. "There's a _monster_ out there, Jamie. It's still out there, biding its time in the forest, waiting for its next victim! We need to _do_ something!" I was vaguely aware that I was hyperventilating, and that my eyes were perhaps a little too wide to be considered normal, but Jamie seemed to take it in stride.

"All right," she said, briskly. I wanted to drop to the ground and hug her knees in gratitude, until the next words out of her mouth were –

"Excuse me, I think my friend needs her medication. Now."

-

_What is WRONG with these people??_ Can't they _see_ I'm trying to save them?? Doesn't anyone out there on this reservation care about the fact that there's a MONSTER on the loose??

Sam Uley.

I need Sam Uley.

* * *

**  
Wednesday****, January 18****th**

I wanted to rip the IV out of my arm and limp my way over to Sam Uley's house, hospital gown be damned, but that blasted nurse caught sight of me trying to knot my sheets and blew a coronary. Said that I was unstable and in no condition to go gallivanting about town. Then she sedated me.

I am so going to sue.

Anyway, I managed to convince my doctor that I'd be better off recovering at home, where annoying nurses wouldn't be able to sedate me if I so much as blinked wrong (okay, so I didn't mention that part). He gave me some painkillers, a medical certificate, and sent me on my way.

Benji took a day off from work to hang about the hospital (read: babysit and make sure I didn't try to escape again) so he got to drive me home. There was an awkward sort of silence in the air as he obviously struggled with finding something to say that wouldn't set me off on another one of my "crazy bear" rants.

Instead of trying to convince him once more, I settled for yawning every now and then (which wasn't really forced on my part) to hopefully allay his suspicion. It must have worked to some degree, because Benji's rigid form relaxed a fraction as we pulled into the familiar driveway.

"Beddddd," I groaned, falling into my soft mattress, aware that Benji was hovering in the doorway behind me.

"Your meds," he reminded me.

I waved it off. "Later," I mumbled, snuggling under the covers. "Let me nap first."

I fully intended to put my plan into action right after he left – that is, climb out of my window and make haste to Sam Uley's house – but I guess the fatigue I was faking didn't really need much faking. It took no more than a minute before I was out like a light.

When I finally woke up, it was dark outside. And waaaay past dinnertime, which meant whatever social visits I had planned had to be put on hold. I didn't think Sam Uley would've appreciated some strange girl silhouetted in his doorway at 2am in the morning, wind howling and lightning flashing behind her (or maybe I've been watching too much bad TV).

Either way, I've got today off from school and then some. I don't think I can stay cooped at home for much longer, though. I'm slowly but surely losing my mind.

Lucy came over today to take on her shift for "Kim Patrol" (as Benji calls it), which is really an euphemism for "house arrest" since everyone's got it in their heads that I'm going to make another run into the woods at the nearest opportunity.

Right. Like _that's_ going to happen. After being chased down by a furry hippo and that nearly took out my eye? No, thanks. I won't be stepping into that forest again for a long, _long_ time.

The boredom is killing me. Don't get me wrong, Lucy's great and all. She's nice, and a good listener. It's just that we don't have much in common to build conversations around, and after exhausting the usual pleasantries, we lapsed into a silence that was not entirely unexpected. I made an excuse to go back to my room to get some rest, so here I am. Sprawled out on my bed, diary in hand, lolling about in a pain-fueled depression. I can't even call Jamie for a chat, since the phone's still disconnected and the earliest the cable guy can roll over is this weekend.

I've been avoiding mirrors. I can only imagine how horrible I must look, with my black eye and bruises dotting where I slammed into the uncooperative foliage. I figure that if I can't see how bad the damage is, it's one less thing off my mind.

And what on earth am I supposed to do at home for the rest of the week? Watch bad reruns? Sit on the couch and knit?

I need a hobby. Preferably one that isn't Jared-related.

Hmmm.

**xxx  
**

**Wednesday, January 18****th****, Later**

I've decided to give cooking a try. I don't have the most stellar Home Economics grade, though I've always pegged it to the fact that the teacher had it in for me after I accidentally bumped into her and made her spill coffee all over her beige sweater. Pssh. You wouldn't expect teachers to hold grudges, but there you go.

Either way, I figure that cooking will be a good skill to have. A bad grade from ages back isn't going to daunt me. How hard can it be, anyway? Anyone can toss a bunch of ingredients together and call it food, eh? All the chefs on TV say it isn't an exact science, which is just brilliant.

Maybe I'll even make a career of it! Kim Connweller, Iron Chef. Has a nice ring to it, don't you think?

**xxx  
**

**Wednesday, January 18****th****, Much later**

Cooking is definitely my thing. I was a little worried that I wouldn't be able to get the hang of it at first, but as it turns out, I caught on right away!

Lucy looked a little mutinous when I first told her about my genius idea of getting a new hobby, but I'm sure I managed to sway her to my side at the end of it. She's no cook herself, so I reckon that was why she kept casting wary glances at me as I enthusiastically waved "Cooking 101" around in the air as I puttered around the kitchen, pulling out this and that as I readied myself for my very first cooking attempt.

"Are you absolutely sure you want to do this?" she murmured anxiously, casting her gaze first at the chopper I held in one hand then at the numerous bandages running up my other arm. "Maybe we should wait for Ben to get home. Or Danny…"

"We can't do that!" I said, setting the chopper down on the cookbook as a makeshift paperweight and happily retrieving a bunch of eggs from the fridge. "It has to be a surprise!"

Her eyebrows furrowed as she leaned against the counter. "A surprise," she repeated slowly. "Well, I'm sure they'll be surprised to see you in the kitchen. Have you decided what you'll be making?"

I beamed. "_This._" Nudging the cookbook over to her with my free elbow encouragingly, almost knocking over the knife resting on it in the process (an honest mistake), I gave her my biggest smile as she blanched a little and carefully moved the chopper out of reach before tilting the massive book to read it better.

"Chocolate cinammon doughnuts?"

"That's right!" I crowed. "I've got all the ingredients, look! And it only takes four steps to make!"

The furrow between Lucy's brows deepened as she peered at the recipe closely. "You have a sachet of easy-blend dried yeast?"

"Well, not _that_," I amended, grabbing a bag of flour and dumping it on the table with a flourish. "But you've got to improvise as a chef, you know? There's _soul_ involved."

She blinked a few times, before her expression cleared and she gave me a odd sort of smile. "Indeed. Well, I don't want to get in the way, so I'll just…" she made a vague gesture with her arm and grinned. "Unless you need some help?"

I gave her my best look of mock indignation, and she laughed. Before she left, though, she hastily grabbed the chopper and placed it back into the drawer. "I don't think you'll be needing this for doughnuts," she assured me.

I let out a loud exhalation as I surveyed the tiny kitchen I stood in. Not much counter space to work with, but I figured that I could make do.

First up, the dough. I found the largest bowl we had and drew a blank. I didn't have a measuring scale, though the recipe did read "1.25 lbs/5 cups strong plain flour". Cups? What kind of cups? Would a regular mug do? And what of the "strong" flour? Was the generic one we had stocked in the cupboards enough to pass the strength test?

I settled for using Ma's coffee mug and a ladle for transfer the flour and sugar into giant bowl before moving on to the next step. The Egg Breaking. That part didn't go too well. The first egg I used smashed against the side of the bowl (I guess I used a little too much strength there) and I ended up spending the better part of the next 10 minutes picking out the eggshells from the now very messy bowl. In the end, I figured I'd already pulled out a good part of the egg along with the shells, so I cracked open another one. This one ended up mostly on the table (my hand slipped). A little annoyed by this point, I grabbed the last egg and went at it. I think my ire may have helped things some, because this one went in without a problem. Ha!

Two down. The mixture was looking a little watery, so I called upon my powers of estimation and poured in more flour. And more sugar and cocoa as well, to balance things out. I dipped in a finger to give it a bit of a taste test, not knowing what to expect. It was pretty good!

The kneading wore me out, though. I had no idea how to do it at first, but then I recalled old screenings of Disney movies and I guess my innate cooking skills kicked in at that point. I was on a roll – folding, stirring, pouring flour everywhere to keep it from sticking – I probably looked like one of those professional chefs on TV(sans poofy hat). All in all, I was feeling pretty good about myself as I poured oil in the pan and waited impatiently for it to warm up.

The first few doughy balls I tossed in didn't quite brown as I expected, and it was a lot of foot-tapping and hesitant poking with a spatula until the balls sort of had a "golden-brown" hue to them. The book wasn't too big on details on how the doughnuts were to be removed, so I improvised and used a ladle. The end result looked a tad… well, oily, so I waited for them to cool and used a paper towel to gently blot my latest creations.

Standing back to survey my work, I felt a huge grin creep over my face as I admired my newly made cinammon doughnuts. They looked and smelled _fantastic_. Now, to get the camera –

I was interrupted in my search for Benji's old camera when the doorbell rang.

"Coming!" I yelled, hopping a little and cursing under my breath when my injured foot caught on the leg of the coffee table. I hobbled my way over (passing by a sleeping Lucy on the couch on the way through the living room) and opened the door to find…

…Jared.

I wish I could honestly say that I was surprised to see him standing there, but I guess that given my recent span of mortifying luck lately, it was more of a resigned acceptance that _of course_ he'd be there to witness me when I was looking my worst. I was covered in flour and doughy bits, with a black eye and stitches across the cut on my forehead. He was standing on my porch without a single hair out of place.

Quoth the old adage: Life sucks.

"_Jared_," I finally managed to say, after my brain's circuits reconnected. "What are you doing here?"

I didn't get an immediate reply – Jared was gaping at me, though I wasn't too sure whether it was injury-directed or the fact that I currently looked like the muffin man's apprentice.

"Kim," he began, an agonized look on his face. "I –"

"- You brought me homework?" I blurted out. I'd noticed the papers tucked under his arm.

Jared blinked, and as if just realizing it, hastily handed the sheaf of papers over, his eyes flicking anxiously over my face as he did so.

"Thanks," I mumbled, self-conciously dropping my gaze. _No, don't look at his feet. Don't look at his feet._ I felt his warm fingers on my cheek a moment later, and my eyes snapped up to meet his, startled.

He coughed. "You had, uh…" he made a vague sort of hand motion, hurriedly pulling his arm back to rest rigidly at his side. "Stuff on your face."

My cheeks heated. "I was cooking... sort of."

That seemed to pique his interest. "You can cook?"

"I…" I floundered for the words. "I'm not sure. Maybe?"

"Maybe?" He sounded amused.

"My first attempt," I admitted. "I made chocolate cinammon doughnuts." And then, because I wasn't thinking clearly and was quite possibly high on three different kinds of pain medication, my mouth went on autopilot. "Would you like to try some?"

_No!_ Inner Kim was screaming, frantically running around in little concentric circles in the forefront of my mind. _Abort! Abort!_

Too late. Jared's face split into a big smile, which made the butterflies in my stomach explode in a frenzy of activity. Before I could so much as utter a "whoa there, cowboy", he was in the house.

_Jared was in my house._

I think I would've started hyperventilating right there, if it hadn't been for the fact that he had stilled mid-stride, his body tense.

"Is something wrong?"

His back was to me, but I could make out the grim set of his jaw from the side. "Is there someone else here?"

For a moment, I had no idea what he was talking about. Then it hit me. "Oh, you mean Lucy?" At his blank look, I hurriedly elaborated. "Lucy. Benji's girlfriend. She came over to keep me company."

Jared's posture relaxed somewhat. There was a hint of a smile on his face as he turned to me, and I was suddenly hyperaware of how close we were standing in the entryway.

"So." He shot me a grin, and I felt my heartbeat accelerate. His grin widened. "How 'bout a tour?"

The mere idea of Jared in my room was enough to shut my brain down. "A tour," I repeated. "Right. Okay."

Inner Kim suggested knocking him out with a well placed tranquilizer dart. I just wanted to curl up into a ball and rock myself into a fitful sleep. Neither option seemed socially acceptable given the situation, so I settled for flushing a deep red and carefully navigated past him in the narrow hallway.

"Erm," I began, unsure of where to start. "My house isn't that big, so there really isn't that much to see…" My eyes darted around frantically as I tried to recall if I'd left anything embarrassing lying around, like my underwear. _This isn't happening. _Glimpsing the brightly expectant look on his face, though, my resolve may have crumbled a little.

Just a little.

"Living room… bathroom… my Ma's room…" I stumbled a little when my injured foot caught on yet _another_ table leg, and bit back a curse. "Ow."

"Are you alright?" Jared was at my side in an instant, bending over to access the damage. His fingertips ghosted over the bruised areas, and I had to bite my tongue. Hard.

"I'm okay!" It came out a lot shriller than I expected, and I winced inwardly. I felt his fingers retract as he straightened in a single, fluid motion that had me blinking owlishly up at his six foot something frame, my heart beating a heady staccatto. "I'm okay," I said again, a little unnerved by the intensity of his gaze. When the silence stretched on, I caught sight of Lucy's arm dangling off the edge of the sofa she was residing on and grabbed onto it (metaphorically, of course) like a lifeline.

"We should –" I gestured towards to Lucy's sleeping form, then to the kitchen, hoping he'd get the message. He did.

"Wow," he murmured, catching sight of the doughnuts I'd neatly arranged on a plate, then at the mess I'd made in the kitchen. "It looks good. What did you say they were again?"

"Chocolate cinammon doughnuts," I said, a tinge of pride making it's way into my voice. The pain in my foot had faded to a dull throb, and I was more than happy to celebrate my impromptu success with the boy I'd been crushing on for as long as I could remember. Emboldened by the heart-melting smile making its way onto his face, I threw him a winning smile of my own. "Try some!"

He didn't need to be asked twice. Popping a doughnut entirely into his mouth, I watched eagerly as he chewed slowly and swallowed. I was practically rocking back and forth on the balls of my feet in anticipation. "Well? How was it?"

"It's great." His jaw twitched slightly as he said it.

I was over the moon. "Is it really?"

"Definitely." Jared reached for another one. "You could cook again sometime."

"I will!" I assured him. Before I could tell him that becoming the next Iron Chef would be my calling, though, I heard a car pull up in the driveway. Before long, Benji appeared, peering curiously over the rim of his spectacles into the kitchen.

"What's going on in here?" His eyes travelled from Jared to me, then to the mess in the kitchen before finally settling on the plate of doughnuts in front of Jared. His eyebrows shot so high that they almost disappeared into his hairline. "Kim, did you _make _this?"

I beamed at him. "I did! I made it all from scratch, too."

"That's…" Benji looked like he was struggling to find the words. "That's great, Kim." Shuffling over to where Jared was standing, he gingerly raised a doughy puff into the air for closer inspection. "What's this supposed to be? Some sort of ball?"

"Chocolate cinammon doughnut." Jared said automatically, though it was a little muffled by the half-eaten one he was chewing.

Benji took a deep breath. And then he shoved it into his mouth.

I watched with bated breath. When no answer seemed to be forthcoming, I tugged on his sleeve impatiently. "Is it any good?"

Benji chewed vigorously and swallowed. "It's… good."

"Yeah?" I clapped my hands together in delight. "Not bad for a first attempt, eh?"

"What's going on in here?"

I turned to find Danny in the doorway, in what was becoming an increasingly cramped kitchen. He took in the scene before him, though his gaze kept flicking back to Jared's hulking form. His eyes narrowed.

"Jared stopped by to drop off my homework," I hurriedly intervened, before Danny got the wrong idea entirely. "I invited him in to try out my cooking."

Jared gave him a brief nod. "Daniel," he said, without any real inflection in his voice.

After a long moment, Danny gave him a nod of his own. I let out a breath I didn't know I'd been holding.

Grabbing a doughnut from the rapidly diminishing pile stacked on the platter, I waved it in front of him coaxingly. In return, Danny raised a brow, glancing at Benji and Jared before shrugging his massive shoulders in an "Oh, what the hey" manner. He leaned forward obligingly and took a big bite.

I bounced up and down in barely contained excitement. "Good enough for me to become the next Iron Chef?"

Next to me, Benji choked on his doughnut. Must've gone down the wrong airway. I shuffled over and patted his back helpfully.

"Well? What do you think?"

Danny, still chewing, closed his eyes briefly before exchanging glances with Benji, who had recovered from his coughing fit and was wiping at his eyes, glasses in hand. Poor thing.

"It's not half-bad, kiddo."

"I knew it!" I crowed. "I think I've found my calling, Danny. From now on, you and Ma can leave all the cooking to me. I'll take care of it!"

At that, a look of alarm passed over his face. He opened his mouth as if to say something, but seemed, for once, to be at a loss for words.

"What?" I asked, puzzled. Then I realized what he must have been worried about. The catastrophic mess I'd made in the kitchen. "Oh, sorry about the mess. I'll clean it up, I promise!"

Silence. Then - "Okay," Danny said.

Next to me, Benji got to his feet suddenly, nearly toppling over the chair as he did so. "You shouldn't tire yourself out, Kim." He let out a weak sort of chuckle, which I pegged to the fact that his eyes still looked kind of watery from his coughing fit earlier. "The doc said you needed bed rest, remember?"

"Oh, don't worry about it," I said breezily, buoyed by the thrill of turning out to be the next cooking prodigy of the family. "It'll give me something to do, at least. I'm sick of being cooped up indoors with nothing to do." And then, struck by an idea, I clapped my hands together excitedly. "I'm making breakfast tomorrow!"

Danny blinked. Benji wiped at his eyes. Jared grinned.

"Time to go, I think," he said, getting up from his seat with surprising grace for someone bordering on gigantic. Not for the first time that day, I wondered at how on earth he'd managed to hit a second growth spurt that had him gain nearly a foot in height and what looked like thirty pounds in muscle.

"I'll walk you to the door," I said automatically, but was halted by the weight of Danny's hand on my shoulder.

"I got it," he grunted. "You should… go get some rest. Benji can clean up in here."

I opened my mouth to protest – it was _my_ mess, after all, and I didn't think Benji would appreciate having to picking up bits of eggshell from the floor. Benji surprised me, though, by giving me a reassuring look. "Don't worry about it," was all he said.

Do I have the best big brothers in the world, or what?

Belated relief finally kicked in when I realized that I'd be spared from a potentially awkward one-on-one farewell with Jared at the door, and I hoped that it didn't translate onto my face when I turned to him and gave him a small, hesitant wave in turn. "Thanks for dropping by, Jared."

"I –" he cleared his throat. Our eyes met briefly, and I desperately prayed that I wasn't blushing. In front of _Danny _ and _Benji_, no less. The panic I felt receded somewhat when he smiled a little, raising a doughnut ball (slightly burned at the edges, to my despair) in thanks as he said, "Anytime. Get well soon, Kim."

And then he was gone. I heard the heavy footsteps of him and Danny as they disappeared down the hallway, then the low hum of voices that I couldn't quite make out over the clatter of Benji clearing the various bowls and plates I'd left on the countertop.

"Oh," I said, properly startled at the fact that there didn't seem to be any more doughnuts on the table. The platter was completely empty, sans a few crumbs. "You guys finished them all? I wanted to try some!"

A cough. "Well, they were so good that… we couldn't help ourselves. Jared polished off quite a few himself." At that, he downed an entire glass of water and gave me a weak smile.

I volunteered to at least help to give the table a bit of a wipe down, but was quickly ushered out of the kitchen and made to "rest" on the couch with Lucy, who has to officially be the heaviest sleeper in La Push, if not in all of Washington. The girl could probably sleep though a tornado.

Speaking of which, it looks like she's finally awake. I don't think she makes for a very good guard if she falls asleep while on duty –

CRAP. I TOTALLY FORGOT ABOUT FINDING SAM ULEY.

Argggh.

* * *

**  
And… there we go. An extra long chapter to make up for my horribly slow update. Once again, apologies in advance for any unchecked mistakes – msword has been spazzing out on me and it's been annoying me to no end.**

**Indecisive crush blowing hot and cold + empty wallet due to the longest shopping pilgrimage of my life = more time to stay at home ****to write. Wish me luck (:**

**As always, comments/constructive criticism appreciated!**

**xxx**

**Malice Cat**

**Next: **_**Meno mosso**_


	4. Meno mosso

**Cheers to everyone who reviewed the last chapter: butterskew, sianybox, angel-cake, reeann, Three AM, eeyore-ft-tigger **(nobody's going to die. Yet. -evil laugh-)**, lovably17, Julesgemma** **, fireylight, and Lena Tyrins.**

**I wanted to play the whole "How long can I keep this up without any mention of Jared's last name to keep this as canon as possible" game, but… I lost. Twas not to be.**

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_**4. Meno mosso**_

_**xxx**_

**Thursday, January 19****th**

I never thought I'd ever say this, but…

… I actually _want _ to go back to school.

Don't get me wrong – I love school. Staying at home with the knowledge that everyone else is slogging over their desks is brilliant, as well. But there're only so many reruns I can watch before I go insane. And baking's out of the question, too, since I've used up all the flour. I could've sworn there were eggs left over in the from yesterday, but when I opened the fridge this morning, they all seemed to have mysteriously vanished.

Hmmm.

I didn't get a chance to prepare breakfast this morning (Danny beat me to it) or lunch, for that matter (Benji dropped off a takeaway pizza from where he works). Lucy's here again, and she's fallen asleep with my copy of _Wuthering Heights_ propped up on her stomach – not that I blame her, it's not exactly the most exciting story out there -

OH MY GOD. SHE'S ASLEEP.

Time to go.

**xxx**

**Thursday, January 19****th****, Later**

I ended up donning the thickest windbreaker I owned and some heavy-duty boots before quietly crawling out of Ma's bedroom window. It was raining (no surprises there) and I barely made it onto the driveway before realising that my breath was coming out in frosty puffs and that I _really_ should've worn more layers before running out.

I paused in contemplation barely ten paces away from the house, shivering and wondering whether I'd better pull a U-turn and pack on a scarf or something, but I guess it was one of those moments where logic was overpowered by sheer laziness.

Walking to Sam Uley's house was no easy feat. It was really more of a steep upward hike than a walk, and since his house sits near the cliffs and there's always some level of "hiking" involved when you're headed into that particular area.

I won't go into the details of how long it took to actually trek up there with an injured foot – let's just say that by the time I found myself on Sam's front porch, I was half-expecting to find a big bushy beard growing on my face. I was literally gasping for breath as I pulled myself up the steps, propping a shaky arm up on the doorframe to steady myself. Before I could turn and scope out the softest available stretch of floor to have a bit of a power nap on, the door was suddenly jerked open.

To my credit, I didn't flinch. Or scream like a little girl. I guess my brief journey-turned-marathon-hike had me so tired that it tamped down on all of my natural instincts.

"Hey," I managed to gasp out weakly, not letting go of the doorframe in fear of melting onto the doorstep like a puddle of goo. "Are you… are you Sam Uley?"

Which, in retrospect, was probably a stupid question. I'd seen him around town before with Emily Young, his fiancée (and earlier, with his then-fiancée, Leah Clearwater – it's a long story). Never up close, though. Looking into his eyes, I actually _felt_ the force of his personality hit me like a punch to the gut.

_Whoa._ _He looks like Jared._ _I wonder if they're related? _I blinked, momentarily thrown by the realization, before the movement of his lips snapped me out of my reverie. _Oh. He's saying something._ "Sorry… what?"

His expression was equal parts amusement and concern. Nothing could've prepared me for what he said next, though. "You must be Kim Connweller."

I gaped at him, awed. "You know who I am?"

The corner of his lips twitched upwards in what might have been a trace of a smile. Before I could give him a hesitant smile of my own, though, it was gone. He moved aside to let me in.

A little awkwardly, I stepped into the large entryway, releasing my somewhat tenous hold on the doorframe as I did so. "You have a nice house," I said automatically as I unzipped my coat, then belatedly realized that I hadn't come over to play tea party with the hulking man next to me.

"_Sam._" I suddenly whirled around, earlier fatigue forgotten as I gazed up at him with wide, frantic eyes. "You have to believe me, Sam. My family thinks I'm crazy. The nurse kept sedating me. "

Sam looked perplexed. I didn't blame him.

"I came to you," I said in earnest, "because –"

I never got to finish my sentence. Right at that moment, Paul appeared at my side. I blinked, struck dumb, wondering if it was some sort of hallucination induced by swallowing too many painkillers. And he was shirtless.

Does anybody in this town actually _own_ clothes?

"Hey, Jared!" he hooted. "Your girlfriend's here!"

At that, I felt my face flush a deep shade of red. _Girlfriend? Is he mistaking for someone else? _And then - O_h god, does he already HAVE a girlfriend?_

Quick as a flash, Jared appeared around the corner. In a completely unforseen turn of events, I was surrounded. Three burly guys. Two of them shirtless. One of which I'd had a crush on for close to a decade.

I was so overwhelmed by the whole situation that my brain almost shut down. Inner Kim was frantically attempting a hard reboot, and I was only vaguely aware of someone's hand being waved in front of my face.

"Paul." I registered the warning tone in Sam's voice as I finally came to my senses.

"I'm okay," I said, instinctively backing away from the odd little circle (or square, if you really look at it) we'd formed, only to feel even more claustrophobic when Jared stepped forward, a concerned expression etched on his face. I didn't think it was possible, but my face got even redder. Meanwhile, my brain was going a mile a minute – why were Jared _and _Paul shirtless? Did Sam have a hot tub in his back yard? And what on earth were three _obscenely_ well built guys doing together in various states of undress in the depth of winter? And –

And then I finally made the connection.

Oh.

_OH._

I felt pretty darn stupid for not realizing it earlier. All the signs were pointing to the obvious.

The boy I'm in love with is gay.

And he's part of Sam Uley's harem.

* * *

**Friday, January 20****th**

I…

I can't do this.

* * *

**Sunday****, Januray 22nd**

Aww, _shoot. _I didn't tell Sam about the bear.

…But who cares, honestly.

**xxx**

**Sunday****, January 22nd, Later**

Is that why Leah Clearwater broke it off with him? Did she find out about Sam's secret harem of shirtless boys running around in his home??

Oh my god, what about _Emily_? Does she know??

What if she decides to drop by her fiancé's house and finds them all having some sort of orgy –

_DON'T THINK ABOUT IT DON'T THINK ABOUT IT_

* * *

**Monday, January 23****rd**

Well, I made it through school.

I think I managed to reconcile myself with the fact that Jared was… well. You know. Not going to be fathering any of my future kids anytime soon (or anyone else's, for that matter). Anyway. It was hardly a relief to be at school again, because apparently word of my accident had gotten around and everyone was walking on eggshells around me.

And the staring. Don't even get me started on the staring. You'd think that people would look away once you've caught them staring at your not-so-flattering wounds and injuries, but the people at the Quileute Tribal School clearly slept in on the day we had the "do not stare at traumatized girl like she's a giant endangered panda at the zoo" lecture.

I'm used to staying under the radar for the most part – I try to blend in rather than fit in, which has sort of become my personal motto over the years. Get through high school, graduate, and move on. Under the weight of all the curious stares and what felt like the penetrating gazes of practically everyone in the classroom boring into the back of my head, I could feel the cracks starting to show.

Jamie understood, though. She walked with me everywhere – to my locker, to the caf, to the restrooms – all with a comforting hand on my arm, which felt more like an anchor weighting me in place, keeping me from losing it entirely.

"This sucks," I mumbled into my sandwich. We were in the crowded cafeteria at our usual table, surrounded by idle chatter and the usual cacophony of teenagers. Normally, I'd feel right at home in our own secluded bubble on the sidelines, but right then, it felt like the entire school was gossiping about _me._ My ears burned.

Jamie shot me a sympathetic look – she was the one person whose sympathy didn't completely grate on my nerves. "It'll blow over eventually." She speared a piece of limp pasta with her fork. "You know the school. They love to gossip. Kind of like when Emily Young got into that accident…"

My stomach clenched. Emily. Emily had gotten attacked by a bear too, hadn't she? I'd only seen her up close once, a few weeks after. Her face looked like it'd come close to being clawed off entirely. I put my sandwich down suddenly, appetite gone.

Jamie stared. "You alright? You look like you're about to be sick."

I slumped onto the table, wincing slightly as the cool plastic pressed up against the bruise on my forehead. My heart was pounding. Blood was rushing to my head.

"Kim?"

I could hear a trace of rising panic in her voice, but all I could focus on was the very real fact that I'd come insanely close to suffering the same fate as Emily had – bleeding out in the forest with half of my face peeled off. I felt the bile rising in my throat.

And out of nowhere, I was lifted off my seat and into a pair of furnace-warm arms. Not to say that I could enjoy the experience of being hoisted unceremoniously into the air _again_ by the (now gay) boy of my dreams, but I guess I was more concerned with trying to keep my sandwich down.

"Kim?" He sounded panicked, too. He shook me gently, and the rocking motion had me groaning and opening my eyes, first taking in his urgent, worried expression before realizing that we were creating quite a spectacle in the middle of the cafeteria. A crowd was forming around our table, and I could disjointedly make out Charles in the periphery of my vision, hastily elbowing people out of the way so he could come closer.

"Don't," I gasped, when Jared shook me again. "I need to… I'm going to throw up."

_That_ made the crowd back up. People hurriedly backed out of projectile range.

Before I could attempt to crawl out of his arms and restore whatever dignity I had remaining (ha. Dignity. Like I had any of that to begin with), Jared was moving. The walls blurred and I clamped my lips shut, the sudden motion making my head spin.

I dazedly realized that Jared had brought me to one of the girls' restrooms on the lower level.

He carefully set me down on my feet and edged me closer to one of the stalls. The porcelain throne never looked as inviting as it did in that very moment.

Jamie burst in, the weathered door swinging shut with a bang behind her. "Get out of here," she snapped.

The edge in her voice startled me momentarily. I stared at her, nausea temporarily forgotten as I realized she'd been talking to Jared, not me.

_It's okay,_ I wanted to reassure her. _Jared's one of the girls now. _Thankfully, I managed to keep my mouth shut since any attempt at speaking would've probably resulted in me hurling all over his sneakers.

Speaking of hurling…

I took a cautious step towards the toiletbowl. Jamie and Jared seemed to be locked in a hostile stare-off. I didn't want to die in the crossfire.

_Hey, guys. Mind if I puke in privacy?_

I gazed helplessly at Jared's broad back. Every nuance of his body language spoke of tension, and for some reason I can't quite place, he smelled… he smelled like the forest.

The bile rose in my throat.

No time for shuffling now. I all but sprinted over into the stall and slammed the door behind me, retching. My stomach coiled. A moment later, I felt Jamie's cool fingers pulling my hair back from my face, murmuring soothing words as I clutched helplessly at my stomach.

It felt like it went on for an eternity, but it was probably less than that. At the end of it all, I slumped on my side, exhausted. The tiles on the floor were probably rife with all sorts of dirt and bacteria, but I was honestly too tired to care.

I heard the toilet flush, and sighed internally. Grimacing as I slowly pulled myself to my feet (Jamie propping me up as I did so), I blinked at the suddenly too-bright lights lancing into my field of vision and hobbled my way to the sinks.

"You look terrible."

"Thanks," I mumbled, rinsing out the acid taste from my mouth while wishing that the sink would open up and swallow me whole, _à la _Chamber of Secrets.

Jamie sighed. "Not that this fiasco is going to be any less humiliating than you passing out in the classroom last week – honestly, Kim – are you _on_ something?"

It took me a few seconds to process what she was implying. I gaped at her. "Are you _insane_? Of course I'm not!"

Jamie's lip twitched upwards at one of the corners, before her expression smoothed out from amused to serious in a blink of an eye. "There's been talk of some kid from the Makah reservation selling hard drugs around here. You need to be careful."

I glared. "Do I _look_ like I'm on drugs?" At that, I caught sight of my reflection, and had to tamp down on reflexively flinching away in horror. God, I looked _terrible._ There were bags under my eyes, and my skin had an unsettling sort of pallor to it. All that, combined with the less-than-stellar injuries adorning my face, made me look like I'd been picked off the streets and single-handedly raised by a Colombian drug mafioso. Fun times.

Jamie snorted. I shot her my best "if you even remember that pact we made when we were five, you will zip it, lady" look, which had her grinning and extending an arm, which I latched onto with no small amount of relief.

Before we so much as made it to the doors, though, I suddenly stopped in my tracks. "Jamie, wait."

She quirked an expectant brow.

"It's about Jared," I murmured, _sotto voce_. "I think… I think…"

Jamie stared at me, then at the kneading, clenching hands that were probably unraveling the sleeve of her knit sweater. A pregnant silence filled the air.

I took a deep breath. "I think he's gay."

She burst out laughing. "_What_?"

"I mean it," I hissed. "He's part of Sam Uley's harem!"

"Sam Uley has a _harem_?" More laughter. "You sure you haven't met that Makah kid?"

Real witty. "It's true."

Jamie wiped at her eyes. "Oh, _Kim_." She patted my arm. "Let's get you to the nurse, hmm?"

"Whoa, _whoa." _I took a step back. "I'm not going _there._ I have the worst karma when it comes to nurses. Did you already forget about that one lady that tried to put me under every time I so much as blinked –"

"You mean like when you tried to climb out of the third-storey window in your hospital gown?"

"I wanted to let some fresh air in! There was a balcony!"

"Or when you tried to hide behind some potted plants –"

"Argh! _Jamie!_"

She grinned. I scowled. The door swung open.

"Jeez, sis. You sure know how to make a scene."

It was Charles, of course. Jared was right next to him, and both of them were looking a little strained.

I looked from Charles to Jared, then back again. "I'm fine, guys. Really." I let out a weak laugh. "Must've been the crappy caf food, huh?"

Jared moved forward, and it looked like he was about to press his hand to my forehead – my heart went into overdrive, but before his huge, tanned hand could make contact -

"Get the _fuck _away from my sister, Redd."

I stared. It wasn't the cursing – all three of my brothers made a visible effort not to swear in front of me, which I appreciated, but still – hearing the sheer _loathing_ in Charles's voice as he said it… it made my blood run cold. And… well, weren't they supposed to be _friends_?

You could've cut the tension in the air with a meat cleaver. I didn't know where to look – at the uncharacteristic fury on Charles's face? At Jared's frozen form? Or the floor?

Tough choice, that one.

As I contemplated the individual bumps on the ground with concentration usually reserved for end-year finals and driving in torrential downpours, I sensed Jared turning abruptly to face Charles. I could practically picture the grim set of his jaw, the flinty expression and his clenched fists.

"What's it to _you_, Connweller?" he snapped.

_He's talking to Charles, not you_, I had to chant in my mind, repeatedly, though it didn't actually make me feel any better about the whole situation. The last thing I wanted was for the two of them to start throwing punches in the middle of the hallway.

I felt Jamie shift impatiently next to me. She then did what was possibly the bravest (or stupidest, depending on how you look at it) thing I've ever witnessed her do: she stepped between the two of them and planted a palm flat on each of their chests, and in a steely voice that broached no argument, announced, "Kim needs to go to the infirmary. If you assholes don't get of the damn way, I'll kick you guys so hard in the kidneys that you'll both be pissing blood for weeks afterward."

She's got balls, that one.

In the very shell-shocked silence that followed, Jamie took the opportunity to drag me off down the hallway, even managing to get in a derisive sniff in their direction before dusting her palms off in a very satisfied sort of way.

I was in awe. "I think I might be in love with you, Jamie."

She snorted. "Don't I know it."

And that, as they say, was that.

**xxx**

**Monday, January 23****rd****, Later**

I didn't get to see Charles for the rest of the school day – he had track practice and I stayed back for math club – he usually caught a ride back with one of his buds while Benji or Danny came to pick me up.

To be perfectly honest… well, I don't think I would've known what to say once I saw him again. Charles, that is. _Got into any fights lately? _and _Sooo… the testosterone's really peaking at this time of the month, eh?_ didn't seem like very appropriate conversation starters in my head (and even less so out loud, to the bemusement of my fellow math club members).

"You feeling alright, Kim?" Ronald's asking, grinning a little too widely as he elbows our club secretary, Embry, in the ribs. "Hit your head while running from a rabid hippo again?"

Ha. Ha. Just hilarious.

God, I can't even get any peace in math club. It's… well, a bit of a joke, actually. We don't even do any math during our meetings – the club basically exists so that we have an extra bit of something to put on our certs or resumes after high school, or whatever. I'm co-president with Ronald (who's a senior) and the most we ever end up doing over club meetings is homework. We always pretend to have a bit of a serious math discussion whenever Mr. Rize (our club advisor) comes over, but he doesn't even have a clue on what integers are, so it's safe to say that he doesn't stick around.

Right now, Ronald's trying to balance a neon pink SuperBall on his nose, Embry's casually flipping through a gaming magazine, and I'm writing in my journal.

It's a miracle that we lose every single math competition in Washington State, isn't it?

Whoo. Jared just walked into the room. We've got enough people for a game of Bridge, now –

OH MY GOD THIS ISN'T HAPPENING

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**Feedback always appreciated (: Thanks for reading!**

**xxx**

**Malice Cat**

**Next: **_**Scherzando**_


	5. Scherzando

**To all those who reviewed the last chapter: thank you so much! fireylight, lena tyrins (music words ftw indeed!), butterskew, eeyore-ft-tigger, JayD, RamenStealer, Izzy-Rose, deator11, angel-cake, Eleanor J and tsebehtsiellv****illams (revilo ekil yllaer I, deerga), – you all rock :)  
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_**5. Scherzando**_

**xxx**

**Monday, January 23****rd**

Huh.

I could be wrong, but I think… I think Jared just joined the math club.

Yep. That's totally not weird. Not weird at all, right? I haven't stepped through a rift in the space-time continuum to a parallel universe, where people like Jared – oh, I don't know – _join the math club._

When he first strolled into the room, he was met with resounding silence. I think I may have been gaping at him like a deer in the headlights when our eyes met. The tension in his shoulders seemed to loosen a fraction, though that did absolutely nothing for my nerves.

It was Embry who broke the calm. "Hey, Jared. You lost or something?"

"No." His eyes didn't leave mine.

_Then why are you here?_ The words were on the tip of my tongue, but I couldn't for the life of me get them out. Probably in fear that opening my mouth would cause me to throw up all over the desk.

The silence stretched on. Next to me, I felt Ronald shift uneasily in his seat, the legs of his chair making a sharp, screeching noise that had all of us cringing internally.

Jared scowled, and before I could register what on earth he was doing, he moved straight towards our group, yanking up a chair rougly to sit squarely between myself and Ronald. Given that there was barely three feet of space between the two of us to begin with, the addition of one oversized Quileute boy to the lineup was making it a very tight squeeze indeed.

"Uh, Jared?" My face felt like it was on fire. "What're you doing here?"

He shifted to face me, his expression serious. "I'm joining your club."

I couldn't help it. A bubble of laughter escaped, and I hurriedly clamped a hand over my traitorous mouth before any further damage was done. "Sorry, what?"

"You're joking, right?" Ronald seemed to regain himself, looking a little disconcerted at the sudden proximity between him and the wall of muscle that was Jared. He pushed his spectacles up the bridge of his nose, his voice losing none of its incredulity. "Let me get this straight. You actually _want_ to join the math society?"

Meanwhile, Embry was casting glances at Jared, then at me, then back again. When I caught his gaze, he looked pointedly at the non-existent space between myself and Jared, before ducking his head into the collar of his hoodie to hide what was probably an amused grin. I felt my cheeks flush in embarassment, trying to figure out if I could discreetly scoot my chair away an inch or so without making it too obvious.

I was so preoccupied with the notion of moving away – not leaning toward, dammit! – from the warmth next to me that when Jared extended his arm and moved it so that it was draped over the back of my seat, I nearly had a heart attack right then and there.

And just like that, it was as if the winter chill in the classroom evaporated. It was like being enveloped in a heated blanket, or running out of the house to soak up some rays on a sunny day.

It was bliss.

Or it would've been bliss if it'd been just the two of us, on a beach somewhere, with the sunset on the horizon and the sound of waves lapping in the background…

… and if he wasn't gay.

_That_ brought me back to reality real quick.

I leaned forward in my seat, desperately hoping that my discomfort at the whole situation wasn't written all over my face. Thankfully, it didn't look like anyone noticed – Jared was glaring daggers at Ronald, Ronald was holding up his palms defensively (his chair seemed a little farther away than I last recalled), and Embry was regarding the both of them with a mixture of curiosity and worry.

" – Not that I'm saying you can't, Jared." Ronald looked even more stressed than I felt , and _that's _saying something. "Er, just so you know, it's really more of a… _casual_ sort of thing. We're not exactly in it to, uh…"

"Win stuff?" Embry piped in.

"Right." Ronald exhaled, his glasses slipping a little on the bridge of his nose as he slumped in his chair, apparently relieved that our club's big "secret" was now out in the open. At Jared's blank look, he sat up again and hastily continued. "I mean, as club president and all, I'm honored that you'd actually consider joining, but I'm not really sure if you know what we actually do in these meetings –"

"We do nothing," I finally said, putting him out of his misery.

Jared's gaze moved to meet mine. My hands were clenched with anxiety , but I continued. " We pretty much just meet here every week to fill the hours. We don't do any math… stuff." I bit my lip. "At _all_," I added, as an afterthought.

Embry snorted. "Isn't _that_ the understatement of the year." He shot Jared a grin and waved his magazine in the air as proof, before reaching for the SuperBall on Ronald's desk, bouncing it off the cemented floor with gusto.

"Hey!" Ronald yelped, as the ball went ricocheting down the front of the class, toppling a chalk box in the process.

It was exactly the tension breaker we needed. Embry and I cracked up at the sight of our gangly president stumbling about on all fours, trying to get his hands around what was turning out to be a particularly rebellious neon SuperBall. Next to me, Jared cracked a grudging smile.

"So," he murmured a while later, when everyone had settled back into their seats and a comfortable sort of lull resumed – Embry went back to his magazine, Ronald was huffily nursing his pride (and his skinned elbows) in a corner of the classroom, and I'd pulled out some homework to do after hurriedly tucking my diary back into my bookbag. Jared hadn't moved from my side, his arm a solid presence behind me. Was it just my imagination, or was he leaning even _closer_ than before?

His proximity was making me break out in a sweat. In winter, no less. I wasn't too sure it if his heat was to blame, or my nerves. Probably a combination of both.

"What're you working on?" _Don't look into his eyes. Don't look into his eyes._

I stared blankly at the sheaf of papers on the desk in front of me. "Uhh… Trig?" I laughed despite myself. At Jared's puzzled stare, I smiled a little, pressing my palms against the rough fabric of my jeans. "It's just… math. During a math club meeting."

"Who'd've thunk it?" Ronald's voice echoed from his corner.

"Sacrilege," Embry added.

Man, I love these guys.

I felt Jared move impossibly closer, which sent my heart into a fresh round of palpitations. I was momentarily dazed by the sensory overload – his warmth, his smell, his presence – it was getting harder and harder to breathe. I hoped that I wouldn't pass out from asphyxiation.

"Is that the work Mr. Schue just gave us?" Jared was smiling.

I couldn't tear my eyes away. I was acutely aware that there couldn't have been more than 6 inches between my face and his, and if I just leaned in a little…

"Yeah," I mumbled, averting my gaze to the mess of notes before me. The lines and words seemed to blend into a big jumble of ink, making me feel even more out of my element than I already was.

His voice was like honey-coated gravel. "Would you mind explaining it to me? I missed some classes."

And that was how we spent the remainder of the two hour meeting – unlike quadratic equations, trig was actually something I could wrap my brain around, so explaining it wasn't really a problem. The real issue was trying to put it into words without fumbling or making an ass out of myself (not an entirely unreasonable possibility, given my none-too-stellar track record in this particular area). Either way, it seemed that Jared was content to listen, his fingers drumming a steady staccato on the back of my seat.

Time passed. When I finally finished regurgitating all I knew on the topic, I was surprised to find that we were the only ones left in the room. I blinked a few times to clear my head of the trig-induced haze. "Where did Embry and Ronald go?"

Jared looked faintly amused. "They left a while ago."

"Oh." I didn't quite know what to say to that. A part of me was all _Oh my god, I'm alone with Jared_, while the practical (often suppressed) parts were going _Looks like your ride home just abandoned you, bub._ Fiddling awkwardly with the frayng cuff of my sleeve, I hesitantly stood to gather up my things, combining the mess of notes into a haphazard pile. Jared rose with me, immediately reaching for my bookbag when I was done.

"I can manage," I said, mortified. It's one thing to be chivalrous, but another thing entirely to be carrying a bookbag containing a certain private diary filled with all manners of incriminating passages about a _certain Quileute boy-who-must-not-be-named._

Unfortunately, Jared must've mistook the crazy look in my eyes for something else, like gratitude. "I got it," he assured me with a lopsided sort of smile.

"No, seriously," I insisted, standing on tiptoe to try to swat the strap off his shoulder. "It's my bag. It's got all my… you know. Stuff."

Jared rolled his eyes, ignoring my futile attempts to reclaim my bookbag. "Where to?"

"Where to?" I repeated. There was only one way this conversation could be headed. "Home, I guess." _Please, please don't offer to give me a ride home. My heart can't take much more of this._

"Can I give you a ride?"

Ah. The inevitable. I took a deep breath and looked him squarely in the eyes. Given the height difference, it's amazing the muscles in my neck didn't cramp up from the effort. "Actually… I'm walking home today."

"_Walking_?" Jared's eyebrows shot up, and he sounded extremely dubious. "Should you be walking home in your conditon?"

"I'll be fine." He didn't look convinced, so I switched tactics. "Working on my stamina. Er… live healthy, and all that. Health is good."

"Health is good," Jared echoed. His eyebrows furrowed, and I had to bite down on the impulse to press my fingers to smooth out the crease on his skin. It was probably a good thing that his expression cleared seconds later, a trace of a smile tugging at the corners of his lips as he moved past me, and left the room.

He LEFT THE ROOM.

"Hey!" I had to run to keep up with his long strides, all the while trying not to trip over chair/table legs on my way out of the classroom. "Jared! My bag!"

He didn't slow down, our footsteps echoing in the deserted hallway. I probably had to take two steps to match every one of his, which was not making me a happy camper.

"Wait," I gasped, lungs heaving for air by the time we'd made it to the carpark (Yeah. About that stamina thing? Wasn't exactly lying there). "Stop, stop. I'll ride in your truck."

Jared grinned down at me, smoke coming out in puffs as he finally stopped in his tracks. And then he reached up a huge hand and ruffled my hair. "Atta girl."

I scowled up at him. "You know what? I changed my mind. I don't need a ride. I'll crawl home if I have to."

To my surprise, he tilted his head back and laughed. Not for the first time, I marvelled at the startling contrast he painted – his classic features, sculpted cheekbones, and his lean, male form against the otherwise bleak atmosphere of storm clouds and small town quaintness – he looked completely at home, yet out of place at the same time.

It was depressing.

You know the feeling you get when you stand next to someone so blindingly, heart-breakingly perfect that you can't help wanting to dig a ditch to bury your own imperfect self in? Yeah. That's how I feel whenever I'm around Jared. Any more time spent with him and my self-esteem was going to hit rock-bottom. Lower than that, even. With my luck, it was probably going to burrow through the Earth's crust and wind up somewhere in Antarctica.

"I'm not getting in that truck," I said, crossing my arms over my chest, an air of finality in my voice.

Jared cocked his head to the side, regarding me for a moment. He shrugged. "That's fine."

Wait, what?

"Hey!" I protested. In a flash, he was getting into his truck, my bookbag in tow. "Jared! I said no!"

He rolled the window down after starting the engine, propping his elbow on the edge as he peered down at me, a slow smile spreading across his face. "Something wrong, Kim?"

I gritted my teeth. God, it was cold out. "My bag, please."

"What about it?"

"Can I have it back?" _WIND BLOWING_ _COLD COLD COLD._ "…Please?"

He looked thoughtful. "You know what? No."

My jaw dropped. "_No?_ What d'you mean, no? It's _my _bag!"

"You're free to walk if you want, Kim. I'm just giving your bag a ride home. It looks tired."

So _that_ was how he wanted to play it, eh? _Well._ That was fine. Two could play at this game.

"Suit yourself," I finally snapped, after ten seconds of Jared trying to keep a straight face while I tried to set his hair on fire with my laser glare (it didn't work out). Letting out an audible huff, I spun on my heel and started making my way down the road. I had to hand it to Mother Nature, though. She sure knew how to make it look dramatic for me – the wind was gusting in my face and from the looks of the dark clouds in the distance, it was going to be one hell of a sympathy party.

The hum of the engine behind me only strengthened my ire. "Go away," I gritted out under my breath, hugging my arms close to my chest to ward off the chill. I couldn't feel the tips of my ears.

"You know," Jared called out as he pulled up next to me. His expression _radiated_ smugness. "You could just get in and save yourself all the trouble."

"Don't wait up," I said sourly. "You and my bag have a good time, now."

He laughed again. It really was a beautiful sound…

_God, woman! Snap out of it!_

"It's a long walk home…" I didn't need to look at him to know that he was smirking. What on Earth did I even see in him? He wasn't even _that_ cute.

Alright, fine. He is that cute. But I had something to prove. And if the sudden drop in temperature was anything to go by, Mother Nature was on my side. Why, if the top layer of my skin froze off completely, I wouldn't be cold! It's all about seeing the glass as half-full, really.

"Kim." He sounded a little worried, now. "Your teeth are chattering."

_You don't say_, I wanted to drawl, but I think the effect would've been ruined by the fact that I'd just lost all the sensation in my lips, too. Fueled by a final burst of adrenaline, I picked up the pace and stared resolutely ahead. Maybe if I sang a cheery mountain climbing song in my head, it'd put things in perspective for me and help me hold out for the next couple of miles. _O'er the fields where the water's falling…_

No.

_I'm freezing my toes off_, Inner Kim complained. _Unlike you, I actually want to keep all of my bits. Just get in the damn truck._

"Sh-shut up," I grumbled under my breath.

"Pardon?"

My head swivelled to face him so fast, I almost got whiplash. "W-What?" _Did he just hear that? Over the wind and the engine?_

"That's it. You're coming in here." Before I could react, he hit the brakes and opened the door. At this point, I was too numb to even take so much as a reflexive step back to give him some room. Jared pressed a burning palm to my stiff, unmoving back, pushing me towards the driver's seat. "In you go."

I managed a few staggering steps forward, halting when the monumental task of climbing up onto the truck itself became an issue. Suddenly, the idea of actually employing my abused muscles to clear the final three feet seemed akin to scaling Everest after running a 10 mile marathon. It just wasn't going to happen.

Fortunately, Jared seemed to understand my predicament. He lifted me like I was a sack of potatoes and deposited me easily on the worn leather seat, pulling himself up after me and closing the door. As a result, I was now pressed up against one exceedingly hot (both literally and figuratively, I assure you) Quileute boy.

Jared didn't seem to have a problem with it, though. In fact, he looked a little surprised when I scooted away hurriedly to the passenger's side, grabbing my bookbag with numb fingers and holding it protectively in my lap. _I'm never letting you out of my sight again, Bag._ _Count on it._

"The heater's out," he said apologetically, starting up the engine again. The truck roared to life, the vibrations making my teeth rattle together.

"Mmrh," was my reply. Heater or no, I was glad to be off my feet. I guess sudden bursts of physical activity are good for cancelling out righteous indignation, at least.

A comfortable silence ensued, punctuated only by the sound of rolling thunder in the distance. I shivered.

"Cold?" Jared asked, sounding concerned. "Need my jacket?"

I don't know if it was the sheer lunacy of the situation, or Inner Kim finally wresting control of my actions – I unceremoniously burrowed into his side and wrapped my ungloved fingers around the nearest stretch of russet skin I could find.

The muscles on his arm jerked visibly at the contact. "Shi –" he cut himself off, looking at me with wide eyes. "You're freezing."

Keeping one arm on the wheel, he moved the other around me in an odd mimicry of earlier, in the classroom – only this time, I didn't feel like I wanted to crawl out of my skin. It was… comfortable, leaning into his warmth, breathing in his scent, relishing the quiet.

After the second turn, he spoke. "What's with the bag?" He nodded briefly to the bookbag, which I still had in my lap. "Got some gold bars hidden in there?"

His tone was light and teasing, though I couldn't really bring myself to mirror it.

"It's from my Da." My lids felt heavy, so I closed them. "He… he got it for me before he died."

"Oh." He tightened his arm around me a fraction. "I'm sorry."

My voice was somber, and surprisingly, not shaky. "It was a long time ago. Don't worry about it."

I leaned my head back, feeling his warmth seep into my skin. I wanted to live in that moment, where it was just the two of us in his truck, a faint drizzle tapping on the windows, a winter chill in the air, Kim and Jared, Jared and Kim, existing. It was so far removed from reality, so unlike everything I'd ever imagined, and so blissfully perfect that images of my last happy family memory flashed across my mind – Da and the rest of us laughing in the tiny kitchen; pasta sauce smeared over Charles's face as he was lifted into the air; my mother smiling and smoothing out the tangles in my hair.

And here I was, nestled against the boy of my dreams, a boy who'd never love me back.

Yeah. Heartache. It's exactly as it sounds, but ten times worse when the guy who's breaking your heart doesn't even know it's happening.

I felt the car slow to a halt, but I didn't open my eyes. Felt Jared lean forward to pull the keys out of the ignition, felt his warmth shift and return like a tide. For a moment, I thought he'd try to wake me, move me, say something… anything.

He didn't.

Time stretched on. The air around us got colder. The two of us sat there in his truck, the sound of rain all around us.

It was the best moment of my life.

And the worst.

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**Thanks for reading! Feedback always appreciated.**

**(And a little question for all you readers out there: Is there a particular pet peeve that really bugs you when you read fanfiction? Mine would have to be punctuation, probably – it drives me up the wall when people post fics that don't include commas, full stops, and proper quotation marks. Yeah, I'm weird like that :l )**

**xxx**

**Malice Cat**

**Next: **_**Trattenuto**_


	6. Trattenuto

**I have much love for everyone who left me reviews for the last chapter – so much love, in fact, that I managed to harass my beta into finishing up early. Woohoo! :) So this early release goes out to ****Lena Tyrins, Izzy Rose, tsebehtsiellivllams, butterskew, fireylight, Margaret, angel-cake, judyootori, eeyore-ft-tigger, Gryffindor Gurl2, Eleanor J, choco1154, and xxLayInDayxx: thank you for reviewing! (And thanks for sharing your pet peeves, as well – it's good to know I'm not the only one nitpicking out there.)  
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_**6. Trattenuto**_

**xxx**

**Tuesday, January 24****th**

Distracting.

That's a word I've often used to describe the boy-who-must-not-be-named before (especially during those all-too-important pre-exam revision sessions), but well… not to this extent.

You know what? NEVER to this extent.

Right as I'm writing this, trying to pretend that I'm actually taking down notes on why Orsino is a love-obsessed asshat (looking up at the teacher and nodding every now and then – trust me, I've got this skill down pat), a certain boy-who-is-supposed-to-be-dozing-off is staring at me.

I'm not kidding. He's still doing it. He's been doing it ever since class started.

At first, I thought he'd caught sight of something interesting in the window, like a bear on a unicycle juggling plates. Checked the window. Nothing.

Then I figured that if he wasn't staring at a talented circus bear, it had to be something on my face. Or in my teeth. Or in my hair. Either way, it couldn't be very good. I mean, the boy was flat-out _staring._ For all I knew, there was a bird perched atop my head.

The paranoia slowly built up along the course of the lesson, snowballing into one gigantic mass of fearful anxiety, until I finally cracked and had a good long stare into my bookbag (the last time someone in the back row pulled out a compact during Lit, it got stomped on and soundly broken in half – we all take precautions, now).

And… yeah. Nothing's wrong. There is no bird on my head. In fact, I think I look a lot better now that the stitches are gone and the bruises have faded somewhat. Maybe it's the lighting, I don't know. Maybe I still look like a trainwreck from where Jared's sitting, and he's decided to let me know by not averting his gaze for the last forty minutes.

… Please, bell. I need you to ring. I need you to ring so I can run to the bathroom and hide in there forever.

HE'S STILL LOOKING.

Someone shoot me now.

**xxx**

**Tuesday, January 24****th****, later**

"Kim, you're being ridiculous."

"I am _not_!"

"You're going to have to come out eventually."

"I don't think you're in a position to call me crazy, Jamie."

"Oh? At least _I _haven't locked myself into a bathroom stall. You need to come out of there."

"You can't make me."

An aggravated sigh. I was half-expecting Jamie to kick the door down (she can be quite aggressive when properly riled up), but I guess it was too early in the week to warrant that sort of ire. Instead, I received a very rude under-the-breath swear for my efforts, which was followed by the loud clomping of her boots as she exited the bathroom.

"I heard that!" I called out after her, before resettling onto the cool lid of the toiletbowl.

The thing is, I actually don't feel too good. Not in a "I'm about to pass out from fever" kind of way, but more of a "I spent the entirety of last night crying my eyes out" kind of way. Heartache, as I found out first-hand, is a bit like having someone tap dance on your insides with golf cleats on. It's unnecessarily excruciating, drawn-out, and sends you spiralling off into a pit of misery.

I can't operate under such high levels of stress. I just… can't.

Oh my god. He's knocking on the bathroom door.

Shit. What do I do? What on earth is he _doing_? ("_Kim? Are you in there?_") Crap crap crap _shit_ I need to get out of here –

I'm going to climb out of the window.

**xxx**

**Tuesday, January 24****th****, later later**

_Well._ That was… different.

As it turns out, awkward silences tend to follow when you tumble out of the first-floor girls' bathroom window into someone's arms.

To Paul's credit, he didn't even look that fazed by it. Like catching random girls leaping out of windows was a thing he just _did_. His only response to the shell-shocked expression etched on my face was an amused smirk.

"Paul," I finally managed to choke out, after he'd righted me on my somewhat wobbly feet and hung back a little, hands tucked into his pockets. Meanwhile, the mortification started kicking in, full-gear. "What a… what a coincidence."

He shot me a roguish grin. "Jumping out of windows now, eh?" The laughter was evident in his voice. "Trouble in paradise?"

_Huh?_ I gave him an uncertain smile. "Sorry, what?"

His grin only widened further as he slung a heavy arm over my shoulders, giving me a conspiratonal wink as he led us around the corner. I was dimly aware of the searing heat he emanated through all the layers of clothes I had on, but I guess I was more concerned about the all-too-familiar way he was pressed up against my side.

It took a while for me to realize that I was being propelled _away_ from the school building… which was definitely something to worry about. I mean, Paul is _scary_. He's got the whole "bad boy" persona down pat, and even before he hit his crazy growth spurt, he was known for always getting into fights and stuff. He's even got a motorcycle, which just screams "death trap" (but for some completely inane reason, the girls on the reservation go crazy over it. Go figure). And being _alone_ with him… would be a bad thing.

A very bad thing.

I could feel my fear escalating as Paul all but propelled me along a deserted side path I'd ever seen before. I tried digging in my heels, but it was fruitless – like pitting a house cat against a mountain lion.

The sound of his voice in my ear made me jump. "Relax, sweetheart," he drawled. "I just want to have a little talk with you. You can go back to class _after_."

God, that sounded ominous. It sounded like I'd be returning to class in _pieces._

_Danny. Benji. __Anyone__._ _I'm too young to die –_

I think Paul must've picked up the panicked vibe I was emitting (the short, anxious breaths and the wide, fearful eyes might've been a bit of a giveaway, I reckon), because the next thing I knew, he threw his head back and laughed.

"_Relax_," he repeated, rolling his eyes and chuckling. He also released his hold on my shoulders, and for a moment, we simply stared at each other, the wind buffeting my already messy hair. I was utterly bewildered at his sudden change in demeanor – was he or was he not taking me to somewhere secluded to carry out unspeakable acts of torture, before scattering my remains in a giant bonfire?

"Erm," I said, my voice small and more than a little tremulous. "Are you going to kill me?"

He laughed again. It was a short, barking laugh that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end, and it did absolutely nothing for my nerves.

I balled my hands into fists. "I'll fight you," I said, hoping desperately that a flurry of arrows would rain down upon my would-be-assailant so I wouldn't have to get my ass handed to me in one-on-one combat. Pssh. _Combat. _More like a massacre…

_Focus! _Inner Kim commanded. _Aim for the groin. And __run_.

Just when I was about to follow though with the groin-kicking, Paul held up his palms in what I guess was supposed to be a conciliatory gesture. I paused mid-stance, staring up at him with wide eyes.

"Whoa there." He was grinning widely. "I'm not going to _hurt _you or anything, alright? I just thought the both of us could have a chat."

"A chat?" I repeated suspiciously. "You're not going to kill me?"

"I'm not going to kill you."

I took several calming breaths, before reluctantly unfurling my clenched fingers. I regarded him cautiously, doubt lacing my voice as I took in our surroundings – a pebbled, leaf-strewn path lined by overhanging fir trees; the scent of the sea all around us. "Where are you taking me?"

He cocked an eyebrow in response. "Where do you think?"

I paused. "… the beach?"

"Right in one." He shoved his hands back into his pockets, gesturing me forward with a nod. "Ladies first."

My anxiety gradually ebbed away as I reluctantly took the lead, sticking close to the edge of the narrow path so I could grab at branches in case I slipped on any wet leaves. If Paul was annoyed by the snail-like pace we were keeping, he didn't show it.

It wasn't the most pleasant experience – I'm not a huge nature fan, and I can think of a billion things I'd rather be doing than hiking down a deserted pathway, Quileute bad boy in tow. It was the unsettling feeling of having Paul loping behind me that kept me moving down the uneven path, soil gradually fading to sand as we finally emerged from the overgrowth of trees.

Without ceremony, I flopped onto the nearest bit of clear sand I could find (Don't judge me. Hiking is hard work).

Paul moved to sit beside me, his long limbs stretching out as he tried to get comfortable. Watching him settle in, I was increasingly aware of the uncanny similararites Jared now shared with him – the lean, tall build, the cropped hair, the sharp features.

And the warmth.

Maybe it's some whacked out Quileute metabolism thing.

We watched the waves hitting the shore for a while. The hulking presence next to mine was oddly comforting, not entirely unlike the easy familiarity I felt with Jared. With Paul, it felt a little different. It was like coming home to find that all the furniture had been rearranged. Similar… but _not_, somehow.

He spoke first, his deep voice cutting sharply across the biting wind. "What do you think of Jared?"

The sudden question caught me completely off-guard. I blinked rapidly in succession to clear my head before sputtering out an articulate, "What?"

He didn't reply or turn to face me, instead gazing at the gloomy clouds in the distance. There was an expectant air about him, though – an unspoken tension in his shoulders gave me the impression that he wanted a proper answer.

I ducked my head into my knees, feeling the grains of sand shift in my shoes as I fought down my blush. "I don't know," I ended up mumbling. "He's nice, I guess."

"Nice." His voice was flat.

My palms were starting to sweat. _I can't believe he dragged me all the way down here to ask me about Jared… Is this about the gay thing? Oh my god, it's about the gay thing. He knows that I know. Or maybe he just suspects that I know and he's trying to find out if I really know. Okay, Kim. Be cool. Pretend you don't know. Pretend you don't know that he knows you know. But if he finds out that you know and that you're pretending not to know –_

I clutched at my head and groaned. "Ow."

I felt Paul tense slightly next to me. "What's wrong?"

"Migraine," I said weakly, waving it off with a wince. "Give me a sec."

We sat there in silence, a still-tense Paul casting glances in my direction every few minutes. "You sure you're okay?"

On a particularly icy gust of wind, I sneezed. "I'm fine," I croaked. My nose was numb. My lips felt like ice blocks. And my lids were getting heavy, a definite sign that I needed to a nice, toasty bed to lie down in. Maybe a cup of hot chocolate, as well…

"Whoa, _whoa._" I heard Paul saying. "Don't fall asleep on me here." A nudge, followed by a stronger, more insistent palm shaking my shoulder. "Wake up!"

I raised my head slightly, enough to glare at him through thinned eyes. "I'm awake."

He snorted. "Not from where I was standing."

"You're sitting," I mumbled.

I practically _heard_ the roll of his eyes. "Yeah, smartass. Now answer the question."

"What question?"

I felt him twitch, biting back a smile as I pressed my now-frozen forehead against my knees. Baiting Paul was pretty fun, all things considered – somehow, I didn't think he was one for punching out uncooperative teenage girls, so I was probably in the clear.

His reply was short. "About Jared."

"What about him?"

Was he _counting_ under his breath? Oh, this was priceless. Wait till I told Jamie –

"– do you like him?"

And just like that, I was fully awake. My head shot up so quickly that it was as if someone had zapped me with a cattle prod. I stared at Paul.

He exhaled, running a shaky hand through his cropped hair. "Well?" he asked tonelessly. "Do you?"

"Uh… Paul." My icy fingers threaded together. _Please don't kill me. Or at least make my death a quick and painless one. _ I shifted so that I was facing him, cross-legged. I steeled myself. And in the most serious tone I could muster up: "I _know_."

It was his turn to look confused. Losing the grim demeanor entirely, Paul's eyebrows were slightly furrowed as he stared back at me blankly. "You know… _what_, exactly?"

"You _know_." I intoned. When he continued to stare dumbly at me, I went on to elaborate. "About you. And Jared. And Sam."

Paul visibly reeled at my admission, a stunned look gracing his features. It was just one of those moments that you berate yourself for not taking a camera with you for (which, in retrospect, would've been totally inappropriate) because, hey – that's one expression you'll want to set as your desktop wallpaper for _life._ It was just that satisfying.

"When did you… when did you find out?"

"The other day, at Sam's house," I told him. Silence. It looked like Paul was still trying to take it all in. "Don't worry," I blurted out, making him stare at me, wide-eyed. "I won't tell anyone about it, I swear. I understand if you want to keep it a secret –"

His response was immediate. He all but exploded at that point, deep, ragged breaths punctuating each word. It was… alarming. "Of course we're keeping it a _fucking secret_!"

"Right," I said weakly. "A secret."

He got up and started pacing, practically scorching a trail of fire in the sand with his intensity.

I was beginning to feel a little agitated, myself – you know what they say about emotional contagion. That it's… you know. Contagious. "It's a lifestyle choice," I finally muttered, at a loss for anything else to say. "And, uh, not to judge or anything, but… does Emily know?"

No response. Or rather, he simply continued his frenetic pacing.

I babbled on. "I mean, not that I'm in any position to be saying anything – but, you know… in the long-term, it might be problematic. With you guys having orgies behind her back and everything –" _Oh my god stop talking stop talking stop talking " _– things might get a little weird when she finds out. So maybe you guys should tell her now so it won't get too awkward after the wedding –" I clamped my frozen hands over my mouth before I lost it entirely.

Paul had stopped in his tracks. His mouth was hanging open slightly. A tense silence permeated the air. And then – "What did you say?"

"Nothing!" I squeaked. I held my arms up over my head protectively. "_Please_ don't kill me!"

His voice held a trace of incredulity in it. "Did you just say… _orgies_?"

"_No_!" _Oh my god, he heard. He actually heard. And now he knows that I know._ "I take it back! I didn't say anything!"

I nearly had a heart attack then and there when I felt his scorching hands press against my wrists, pulling my arms down firmly so he could crouch down and look me in the eye.

"Kim Connweller," he began, an amused glint in his eye. "I repeat: Did you say _orgies_?"

I didn't really see what he had to be amused about, unless he was just a sadistic bastard that liked playing around with his prey before he punted them into the ocean. A sinking feeling in the pit of stomach told me that _yes_, _he was a sadistic bastard. _And _yes, I was about to become a human cannonball._ A _dead_ human cannonball.

Oh, _hell._ "I know about Sam's secret sex harem," I said pathetically, tears pricking at my eyes as I looked up beeseechingly at my would-be-murderer. "But I swear, Paul, I really won't tell a soul –"

He burst out laughing.

I stared at him, bewildered. The legendary Quileute bad boy was laughing so hard that he'd released my shoulders only to clutch helplessly at his sides, toppling over onto the sand as he did so.

_Oookay._ _Am I missing something here?_

"What?" I finally asked, a little miffed. He was still rolling around in his mirth, his chuckles a muffled rumble as he visibly tried to regain some control. "Am I wrong? Are you guys not gay?"

That only set him off again. It was a while before he managed to right himself, wiping the tears from his eyes as he did so. "Oh my god," he grinned. "That was good. _Really_ good. I like you, kid."

"_Kim,_" I corrected him, aggrieved. "I'm only a year younger than you are."

A wide grin stretched across his face. I watched as Paul stood up suddenly, a smooth, fluid action that did interesting things to his muscles, and held out a large hand.

Hesitantly, I reached up, clasping my own cold hand in his callused, burning one. He hauled me to my feet easily, a small smile still playing at the corners of his mouth.

"Kimmy," he grinned, and I felt my eyebrows furrow at the nickname – "I think we're going to be great friends. The very _best_ of friends, in fact. You know what? I think the three of us should get together sometime. Just you, me, and Jared. How does that sound?"

_It sounds terrible_, I wanted to say. _I'd rather jab my eyes out with a fork_. But instead, all I got out was an unsteady,"Um. Alright."

...I should've just let him punt me into the ocean.

"Excellent." Paul was in high spirits, that I could tell. He draped his arm around me again and started enthusiatically steering me back towards the way we'd come, and he was just so _warm_ that I couldn't protest.

It was a brief trot back to the school grounds from there. It was a lot easier climbing uphill with Paul practically propelling me along the way, so I guess he has his uses.

"Wait a sec," I finally said, twisting a little in his grip to look at him when the familiar brick building came into view. "So you guys are really gay?"

"'Fraid so, sweetheart." The grin was back in full force again, only this time it was positively _wicked_. "We're really, _really_ gay."

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**Thanks for reading! ****As always, feedback is greatly appreciated :) **

**xxx**

**Malice Cat**

**Next: **_**Presto**_


	7. Presto

**Wow. To everyone who reviewed the last chapter: lena tyrins (I keep forgetting to thank you for the C2 add – thanks, sweetheart (: ), Eleanor J, emmestorm, judyootori, megagenie, tyricia, Three AM, XD, fireylight, Izzy Rose, lilcutieissa, KeepSteady, JayD, butterske****w, InsaneMutilation, Gryffindor Gurl2, yoyoyo, deator11 and lolz – I made cookies. Sadly, I do not know where you all live, so the cookies ended up in my stomach. But I was thinking of you guys when I ate them, I swear ;)**

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_**7. Presto**_

**xxx**

**Tuesday, January 24th**

"Where have you _been_ for the past two hours?" Jamie hissed at me, as I sidled stiffly next to her in the hallway.

"Nowhere," I said woodenly, staring intently at the books I had propped in my arms. "I mean… I was in the bathroom."

Jamie's eyes narrowed to slits. "No, you weren't. I checked."

"I was in the other bathroom."

In response, she shot me a withering look. "Do you have any idea how worried I was?"

"I'm sorry." I stared at my feet. "Thanks for covering for me."

"… Is that _sand_ in your hair?"

"What?" I yelped, my fingers jerking up reflexively to tangle in my messily-arranged ponytail. _Blast it all, she's right._ _Crap. There's sand everywhere!_ I had a minor panic attack then and started furiously brushing off my clothes, ignoring Jamie's exasperated sighs as she fumbled with the books I'd uncermoniously piled into her arms.

"Is there something you're not telling me?"

_Plenty. For starters, Paul is a lunatic. Also, __I was right. He's gay. As is Jared. And Sam Uley. And __dammit__, I'm not supposed to tell anyone._

I made a strangled sort of sound. _No, no! Keep it together, Connweller!_

Jamie's gaze shifted from irritated to contemplative, a sure sign that she knew I was on the verge of cracking. I could practically see the gears turning in her head as she changed tactics.

"You know…" she said slowly, giving me an odd sideways glance as I continued frantically removing all traces of the beach incident from my person in the most dignified manner I could manage (which may or may not have involved hopping from foot to foot as I emptied the sand from my shoes). "Loverboy went a little crazy just now."

"Loverboy?" I said, distractedly grasping at the strap of my bookbag as I teetered on one foot, the other hand struggling with tugging the cuffs of my shoes into place. _How much sand is it possible to carry on one person?_ "Wait… who?"

She rolled her eyes. "_Jared_."

I froze mid-hop. "Jared?" I echoed, my voice a few octaves higher than usual. "What happened to Jared?"

Jamie directed her eyes to the ceiling with a long-suffering _God help me before I wring her neck_ expression, one I was entirely familiar with (mostly because she wears it every time I'm being – and I quote, "difficult". Pssh). "Your boy-toy Jared –" I made a sound of protest at that "- completely lost it after you disappeared. The guy just went _crazy. _ Started shaking and everything. You should've seen it."

I felt the alarm kick in then. "Shaking? Like…" I bit my lip. "Like he was having a fit?"

Jamie's expression was neutral. "Something along those lines. It got pretty out of hand. Sam came to get him, actually."

"_Sam_?" I repeated, not sure if I was processing her words the right way. "Sam Uley?"

Her eyebrows shot up. "Unless you know another Sam living on this reservation, then yes. Sam Uley."

I didn't really know what to do with this piece of information. "But Jared – he's alright? Is he okay?"

She sighed. "I don't know."

My brain was working a mile a minute. _Sam came to get Jared. Okay. That's totally normal. They __are__... involved, after all. Nothing weird here. Nothing at all. _

"Are you going to tell me what's going on here, or am I just going to have to beat it out of you?"

For a moment, I was tempted to spill everything. It would've been only too easy to unload everything onto the girl I'd been best friends with for the last ten years – share the burden, so to speak. And if anyone could keep a secret, it was Jamie. She hasn't let me down yet.

The words were on the tip of my tongue: _I was right about Sam Uley having a sexy boy harem. Please don't tell anyone about it?_

And then I saw him.

Paul. Leaning against one of the lockers at the end of the hallway, a hand raised in a casual half-wave, a huge smirk spreading across his face when our gazes finally locked. My heart sank like a stone.

"You'd better go on ahead and warm up the car," I said gloomily to Jamie, who was looking none-too-impressed. "I'll catch up."

She shot me another penetrating stare that had me inwardly groaning at the interrogation that was sure to come. She didn't linger, however – a quick huff, and she was out the door.

"Kimmy!" Paul announced loudly as I shuffled over, making me acutely aware that everyone within a five mile radius now knew what his new nickname for me was.

_This day can'__t get any worse, can it?_

I took a deep breath. "Actually," I began, "I'd really prefer it if you just called me Kim – "

"Nonsense," he cut in, flashing me a grin that was more gleaming teeth than actual affection. "How else is everyone else supposed to know that we're the best of pals, hmm?"

"… We are?"

"Of _course_ we are." Paul's large hands came up to grip me by the shoulders, his features arranged in an expression of mock hurt. "You don't think we're buddies, Kimmy?"

"It's just…" I trailed off, trying to wrap my brain around his strange behavior. "I don't really know you that well."

He let out a deep, baritone laugh that seemed to vibrate off his skin. It was disconcerting, standing there in the hallway dwarfed by someone who looked like he could break my fingers like toothpicks if he really wanted to. I let out an awkward, shaky laugh to play along, but even to my ears it sounded forced.

"Well, let's fix that, shall we?" If that smile got any wider, his face would probably split in two. "How does a girls' night out sound to you?"

I gaped up at him in open-mouthed incomprehension. "A… girls' night out_?_" _That can't be right. I must be hearing things. When was the last time I got my ears checked?_

Paul's grin was bordering on _feral_. My legs felt like twin blocks of granite – I stood rooted in front of him even though all my instincts were screaming at me to _run away_. "That's right, sweetheart. Just you and me." He theatrically slapped his hand to his forehead. "Oh, and _Jared_, of course. Can't leave him out of _this_ party, can we?"

A vision of the three of us teetering down a street, completely drunk and covered in body glitter whilst decked out in neon pink stripper heels flashed across my mind. Closing my eyes briefly, I willed a meteorite to come plummeting out of the sky to squash me flat. _Anything_ would've been infinitely less painful than the endless stream of potentially mind-scarring ramifications that would arise from agreeing to go with Paul's idea.

"I… I guess we can't," I croaked out. "Leave Jared out, I mean. That… that would be bad." _No! NOOOOO-_

"_Exactly_." The look he gave me was reminiscent of how one might look at a child who'd been unexpectedly clever – it irked me to no end. I didn't get a chance to protest, however. Paul dropped his hands from my shoulders abruptly, a grimace twisting his face. It was gone in a flash, and before I could so much as utter an "Are you alright?", he was grinning at me again.

"Gotta run, Kimmy." He pushed himself off the lockers he'd been casually leaning on with surprising grace for someone so large. "I'll see you around." He shook his head slightly in amusement, as if entertained by some sort of secret joke I wasn't in on. A final wicked smirk, and he was gone.

I was left gaping after him. Maybe _he_ was the one on drugs – at least it'd account for his bizarre behavior.

The journey home passed by in a daze. Jamie gave up mid-interrogation when she realized that I was in no state of mind to be holding up any form of conversation (my responses generally ran from "Sorry, what?" to "Uh-huh" and "Yeah, great". I'm amazed she didn't stop the car and kick me onto the curb).

So… yeah. I'm back. No one's home, so I have the house all to myself. In fact, I think I'll have a nice, long soak in the tub to take my mind off things– maybe make some camomile tea while I'm at it, and light some of those vanilla aromatherapy candles to really set the mood.

Relaxation central, here I come!

**xxx**

**Tuesday, January 24th, later**

What was I _thinking _when I agreed to go along with Paul's idea?

It's insane. It's going to be horrible and awkward and _excruciating,_ and I have only myself to blame for it. I can see it now. The three of us are sitting in a theater. Paul and Jared are making out. I'm crying into a popcorn bucket.

I mean, what is the _point_ of even inviting me along when I'm obviously going to be a third wheel? The last thing I need right now is more mental trauma. As if that forest-hippo wasn't enough. Now I officially have front-row seats to witness the boy-of-my-dreams making cow eyes at the boy-from-my-nightmares.

Kill me now.

* * *

**Wednesday, January 25th, EARLY**

I can't believe this is happening. This is incredibly surreal.

I'm in Sam Uley's house, wearing his fianc_é_e's clothes. Sitting on his couch.

Okay. Maybe... maybe I need to backtrack.

...I cocooned myself in my quilt earlier to ward off the chill in bed and was in the midst of drifting off to sleep, when I heard a loud, creaking noise right next to me in the moonlit darkness.

My eyes shot open.

Before I could so much as yelp, a rough, warm palm pressed firmly against my mouth.

Panic.

_RARRRRGH_, I wanted to say. Instead, all that I got out was a muffled shriek. _Oh my god. I'm going to die._

I _felt _rather than saw a large body clamber over my terrified form on the bed. Trying to jerk helplessly away from the insistent palm planted on my face, I only managed to twist away an inch or so, inhaling a sharp burst of newly-chilled air to let out a scream –

"Whoa there. Cool it, Kimmy."

My breath caught in my chest, my heart still pounding overtime. "_Paul_?" I asked incredulously, slapping his suffocating hand away from my face. Realising what time it was, I belatedly dropped my voice to a furious whisper. "_What are you doing here_?"

He grinned, his teeth glowing stark white in the muted darkness of the bedroom. "Kidnapping you."

My mouth opened to ready a retort, but my mind drew a blank. There's just no proper response to someone who just broke into your bedroom at _two in the_ _freaking morning_ that... oh, I don't know – _admitted his grand kidnapping scheme to your face_.

"Let me get this straight," I finally managed slowly. "You're _kidnapping_ me?"

The answering flash of teeth was the only warning I got, before I was lifted into a pair of sturdy arms, quilt and all.

"Hey!" I hissed, squirming uncomfortably in Paul's iron grip. "Let me go!"

A rumbling chuckle. "Stop struggling, sweetheart. You're only making it worse."

_He's crazy. He's really crazy. _

And I was about to give him a run for his money.

"Stop it," I snapped. "I'll come with you. Just... just give me a minute."

He seemed to consider this for a moment. It was hard to tell in the dark, but his expression seemed to shift to contemplative, before he abruptly dropped me back onto the bed.

I gritted my teeth as I bounced gracelessly on the mattress, keeping my ire under check as I swung unsteady legs over the side of the bed. _What do I need? A taser gun? A cell phone? Hell, my sanity?_

As I stood somewhat awkwardly in the middle of the room, face to chest with Paul, Inner Kim was snorting derisively. _Nice move, genius. You don't exactly have any of those things on hand._

I hurriedly grabbed my bookbag and emptied everything out except for my diary, some stationery, and an unopened bottle of water. It wasn't so much for _security_ as it was for familarity – the weight of the bag in my hands was infinitely more comforting than the towering presence next to me.

"Okay," I said, pulling on an old parka and a pair of worn boots. "Let's go."

Paul made a move like he was going to lift me again, and I hastily backed away, almost tripping over the legs of my desk chair as I did so. "I can walk."

He grunted, and clambered out of my open window without a backward glance. The urge to close (and lock) the window behind him was overwhelming in that moment, squelched only by the sinking feeling that told me he'd shimmy down the chimney and pitch me out of the house if he had to.

"I can't believe I'm doing this," I muttered under my breath.

"Believe it." Paul's voice was a deep rumble that broke through the quiet. He watched with raised eyebrows as I clumsily rolled over the windowsill, just barely landing on my feet as I struggled to keep a firm grip on my bookbag.

When I finally moved my gaze to meet Paul's after meticulously dusting myself off, I was startled. It was only then, in the bluish-white moonlight, that I realised he was wearing a pair of tattered shorts. And nothing else.

_Look away! Keep your eyes on his face!_ "Uh... Paul." My face flushed red. "You're – you're not –"

His resounding laugh had me inwardly wincing – he was _loud._

He moved closer. I regarded him warily. "Where are we going?"

And then he was at my side, our faces inches apart as he lifted me, bridal-style.

"_Paul__!_"

He laughed again.

I resisted the urge to slap him. "I can walk, you know." His loping gait jostled me uncomfortably against his chest, which was vaguely reminiscent of banging my head repeatedly against a slab of concrete. Fun times.

His face twisted into a half-sneer. "You'd only slow me down."

"Where are we going?" I repeated, in case he hadn't heard me the first time. "The beach?" When I didn't get a reply, I ventured another guess. "Sam's house?"

Paul rolled his eyes.

"Am I right?" I grinned, feeling a sense of satisfaction wash over me. "We're going to Sam's house?"

Silence. The only sounds that filled the night air were his steady, deep breaths, coupled with the rustling of leaves and snapping of twigs as we moved through... the forest?

I grabbed Paul's arm, all remnants of humor gone. "Paul," I said urgently. "We have to get out of here."

"And why's that?"

"It's not _safe_ here." I tried to shift to a sitting position so I'd be on eye level with him. I received a tightened grip (and probably some bruises) on my arm for my efforts.

"Stop moving around," he snapped. "I'm going to drop you."

I don't take orders very well – they sort of bounce off me like water off a duck's back. I guess Paul didn't get the memo.

I strained forward insistently, voice hitching as he navigated a tricky stretch of rock and moss. "Seriously, Paul. There's a rabid hippo out here. Unless you want to be next on the menu – hey!"

"Crap," he muttered as he came to a sudden halt. Depositing me on my feet, his entire body seemed to tense in agitation. "Be right back."

My eyes widened when I realized the implications of what he was saying. _Be right back_. Which meant he'd be returning. But for him to return, he'd have to _leave_, first...

"You can't leave!" The words were out of my mouth before I could rein them in. "Paul, wa–"

My outstretched hands grasped at air where he'd once stood. "–it." I finished miserably.

_Hell__ to the no_. _He didn't just leave me in the middle of the freaking forest!_

I frantically sifted through age-old memories of the talks they used to give in school on what to do in situations like this – except I was coming up blank on what the protocol was for _abandoned in the forest with a rabid hippo on the loose._

"Okay, Kim." My unsteady voice seemed oddly loud in the eerie quiet around me. "You're cool. You can do this. Just... just stay calm."

I crouched down on the ground, tried to find a rock that wasn't completely covered in slimy moss to sit on, failed, and settled for gingerly balancing on a protruding root while I considered my options.

Pssh. _Options_. The only options my mind was drawing were a) run in a random direction and get eaten by the hippo, and b) stay put and get eaten by the hippo.

Decisions, decisions...

It was the cold that decided it, in the end. Sometime during my thought process, my adrenal glands must've decided to take a coffee break, because that's when the cold really started to seep in. I don't know how many people have had the experience of being stranded in a forest at night in the depth of winter, but I will tell them this – when you're only wearing a ratty old sweatshirt, threadbare pajama pants, a parka and boots so old that you can feel every pebble and bump on the ground through the soles, it sucks.

It sucks _hard_.

Either way, it didn't look like I'd be going anywhere anytime soon. Sub-zero temperatures will do that to a girl. I curled into myself to try to stay warm, but it was in vain. The cold seemed to permeate into my bones – kind of like earlier, at the beach with Paul. Only this time, I was underdressed, over-stressed, and _alone_.

...I was going to kill Paul.

Slowly, and painfully. Maybe I'd jam toothpicks in his eyes and rub a cheese grater over his face. Or dip his toes into a vat of burning oil...

"_Kim_!"

"Paul?" My head jerked up reflexively, homicidal thoughts dissipating in a rush of relief. My gaze traced over bare calves, shorts, skin... more skin... and... _Jared._

I'd barely gotten to my feet when I was enveloped in a bone-crushing hug that took the breath right out of my lungs. Then he was holding me at arms length, eyes scanning my shivering form frantically.

"I-I'm fine," I said, trying to lean in as unobtrusively as I could to leech more heat off his bare chest. As it was, I could feel his palms burning holes through my parka.

When it finally seemed like I passed inspection, his grip loosened slightly, and I took the opportunity to press my numb face against his chest.

God, he was _hot._

Literally speaking, of course. I'd probably be more appreciative of the figurative sense of the word if I wasn't a human popsicle. "Sorry," I managed, frozen hands moving instinctively to wrap around his bare torso. "It's... it's really cold out here."

We stood like that for a few minutes, Jared's arms quickly moving to encircle my smaller form. I don't think I've ever felt more like a marshmallow than in that moment (weird analogy, I know) – hugging him was like being roasted on a bonfire. In a good way. Plus, I was beginning to feel all warm and toasty inside...

"I'm going to _kill_ him." Jared's voice was tight.

"Not if I get to him first," I muttered, reluctantly pulling away from his searing warmth. It took all of my resolve to extricate myself from his embrace, and the fact that he was standing there in all his shirtless glory didn't help matters _at all_.

Jared's long fingers grasped mine. "You're still shivering," he said worriedly. His hands moved to rub up and down my arms, a motion which made my eyes drift shut at how _heavenly_ it felt. _Mmmmm._

"That's it." Jared crouched down before me, an action that had me whimpering in protest at the loss of his heat. "Get on."

I stared at him in incomprehension. "Get on?" I repeated blankly. "Get on what?"

He shifted slightly. "I'm taking you to Sam's place before you freeze to death."

It took a while, but my brain finally caught up with the situation (the rippling muscles on his back were awfully distracting). "Wait. You want me to get on your _back_?"

I guess he'd gotten impatient with how long I was taking – he backed into me without preamble and hooked his arms around my legs. The next thing I knew, I was in the air. Sort of, anyway. As close as I could get to the air while attached to another human being. _Whee!_

I much preferred Jared's method of travel to Paul's. I felt less like a bag of rice, for starters. And the broad expanse of his back radiated so much heat that I would have gratefully welded myself to it if it was an option.

"You're warm," I mumbled, cheek pressed against his shoulder. "It's really nice..."

In response, I felt him pick up the pace. Watching the foliage whiz by made me dizzy, so I closed my eyes and focused instead on the feeling of Jared's muscles moving against my skin. I didn't get to enjoy it for long, though. When I opened my eyes again, we had stopped.

"Am I home?" I wanted to rub at my eyes, but releasing my hands from his heated shoulders proved an impossible task. Settling for blinking owlishly at the sudden change of location – less foliage, a grassless clearing, and oh, a _very_ familiar house – I realized that Jared was looping around to the back and pushing open a door with his foot.

"Emily?" He called out, his muscles tensing under my grip. I wanted to ask him what was wrong, but Jared was moving again, through a tidy kitchen and up a flight of creaking stairs.

I was fully alert, now. I tried to squirm my way off Jared's back, but he was having none of it. "Jared, let me get off –"

"Jared?" An unfamiliar voice, and a face... a face that had marred flesh stretching from forehead to chin. Bear attack.

Emily Young.

"Emily." Jared's voice was urgent. "Kim's freezing. She needs a warm bath, and thicker clothes –"

The unscarred half of her face twisted to an expression of concern, and she moved forward to help me off Jared's back. I untangled my limbs stiffly, wobbling a little when Jared leaned back to set me on my feet.

"I don't need a bath," I protested, feeling the press of her fingers at my elbow as she ushered me down the narrow corridor, Jared following closely behind.

She smelled like violets.

"Here we go," she said soothingly. I tried to focus, but the whole situation was exceedingly overwhelming.

Off-white ceramic tiles. Towels, soap, and a beige bath mat. We were in a bathroom.

Emily moved to the tub and turned the faucet on. The sudden rush of hot water sent steam wafting into the the air, and I watched as the mirror above the sink began to fog at the edges as the tub gradually filled.

I turned to Emily awkwardly, feeling unease gnaw at my insides as I concentrated on meeting her eyes, rather than the mottled scars. "I'm not really that cold." Also, Jared's unmoving presence behind me gave me the impression that he wasn't leaving anytime soon. Gay or not, stripping nude in front of the boy of my dreams was the last thing on my to-do list.

"You'll feel a lot better once you get in the tub," Emily said, eyes crinkling at the corners as she turned and made a shooing motion towards Jared, who was occupying the entire doorway. "Let the girl have some privacy, Jared."

I didn't get a chance to look at Jared's reaction, because Emily strode over and firmly pushed him out into the corridor, shutting the door when he finally acquiesced and moved away.

"I'm sorry if I'm causing you any trouble," I blurted out. "You don't really have to do all this. Really."

Her laughter was bell-like, and I felt a twinge of sadness in my gut when I saw the scars shift over the planes of her face with the motion. _She's_ _so young_.

"Let's get you into the tub," she suggested, motioning towards the increasingly inviting wall of steam that was pooling behind the shower curtain.

I'm pretty shy about stripping in front of other girls, Ma included – but somehow, it was a lot easier around Emily. It's hard to put it in words. Shepherds use the term "bone sweet" to describe sheep that inexplicably calm the other restless sheep around them... Emily was like that. Bone sweet. Being around her made you want to curl up next to her and bask in her peace.

"Oh my god," I groaned, sinking appreciatively into the water. "This feels _amazing_."

Emily sat herself on the edge of the bathtub, careful not to let her the woolly ties of her bedrobe dip into the water.

"I'm never leaving this tub," I announced, shooting her what felt like my first real smile in ages.

Her answering smile warmed me up more than any bath ever could. "Jared might not be too happy about that, I think," she laughed, her voice tinged with mirth.

I sank deeper into the water, trying to hide my flush. "Yeah?"

Her voice took on a more serious quality as she leaned forward slightly, eyes twinkling. "He likes you, Kim."

_Sam's cheating on you with Paul and Jared no no don't say it out loud don't say it out loud _– "Sam's chea –" _KIM CONNWELLER, do NOT finish that sentence! Think fast. FASTER FASTER – _"... I like cats."

Emily frowned. "What?"

"I like cats," I repeated, then promptly wished that I could submerge myself in the tub and warp back home via wormhole. _Kill me now. She must think I'm a complete lunatic._

In response, she merely tilted her head to the side, her gaze solemn as she contemplated my odd admission. "You... like cats."

"Yeah," I said weakly. "They're – they're great."

Emily smiled, the unmarred side of her face lifting upwards in an expression that was both warm and heart-wrenching at the same time. "I'm more of a dog person."

We stayed like that for a while, an easy silence filling the soap-scented air. Until –

"Emily?" An urgent voice I recognised as Jared's echoed past the door. "What's going on in there? Is Kim alright?"

Emily rolled her eyes. "She's _fine_, Jared." She shot me an apologetic look and gracefully moved off the edge of the tub, straightening her robe as she did so. I belatedly realized that it was probably verging on two in the morning, and that she'd probably been asleep before Jared had all but barged into the house, demanding that she draw me a bath.

Mortified, I made a move to get out of the tub, but was halted by her cool fingers on my arm.

"Stay here," she said with a small smile. "I'll run to the bedroom and get some fresh clothes for you."

"You don't have to do that." I motioned towards the clothes I'd piled on the floor. "I've got my own."

"Nonsense," she chided. "You'll need something much warmer than that. Won't be a minute."

She left the bathroom, shutting the door quickly behind her (for which I was eternally grateful – the last thing I needed was Jared barging into the room). Clambering out of the tub, I stood in the middle of the room uncertainly, naked and shivering and hurriedly scoping around for a clean towel. _A-ha – oh, wait, that's a washcloth..._

The door swung open abruptly, and my I felt my heart stutter and start up again when I realized that it was only Emily. She had a pile of clothes in her arms, and a fluffy towel.

"Put these on," she said, after I'd dried myself off the best I could. Pulling on the sweats she gave me, I was suddenly overwhelmed with a rush of affection and impulsively wrapped her in a grateful hug.

"Thanks," I mumbled into her hair.

Emily patted my head lightly, her voice a gentle hum in my ear. "It's nothing, Kim. I'm glad you're alright."

I pulled away after a few seconds, embarrassment taking over as I tucked some wayward strands of damp hair behind my ear awkwardly. "I should get going. It's late."

"I'll drive you home after we get some hot cocoa in you." Her voice was gentle, but there was a underlying firmness in it that broached no argument on my part. Not wanting to get on her bad side, I obediently gathered the pile of clothes on the floor and trotted after her down the hallway and back down the stairs.

Jared was waiting in the living room. He moved quickly to my side when I came into view, large hands reaching up to cup the sides of my face. His sudden proximity was discomfiting, and the world seemed to blur at the edges as I tried to pull myself out of the hot Quileute boy-induced haze.

"Jared," Emily said, pointedly. "Let Kim sit down so she can get some rest. You can help me in the kitchen."

I saw his jaw clench, but he reluctantly released his hold on me and stepped back stiffly. He turned to look at Emily, and it looked like they were having an unspoken conversation involving a lot of eyebrow raising and crossed arms on Emily's part, which eventually ended in Jared's shoulders sagging in defeat as he trailed after her into the adjoining kitchen. "I'll be right back," he said suddenly, his searching gaze meeting mine before he rounded the corner. In response, I raised my fingers in a half-wave. That seemed to satisfy him, though the worry didn't leave his features as I watched him disappear into the kitchen.

Heaving a sigh, I moseyed over to the couch and sank into it gratefully, jerking upwards when I realized that I was sitting on something that poked uncomfortably at my lower back – my bookbag.

The wave of relief that washed over me was so intense that I could only hug the bag (diary still intact, thankfully) in exhausted contentment, which didn't last long. There's so much muted conversation a girl can take before her curiosity hits breaking point, and she has to find something else to occupy her wandering mind to prevent herself from doing something potentially stupid. Like eavesdropping.

(Which I am totally not doing, by the way. I'm just sitting here, writing in my diary. I'm only inching my way across the length of the couch because it's warmer near the stairs...)

Yeah. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

I can hear Emily's voice, now. It's faint, but audible. "Jared... You need to tell her."

"I know." A pause. "She doesn't –"

He's interrupted by the sound of a door slamming, and... footsteps?

"_Fuck you_," a deep, ragged voice snarls. There's the sound of a chair scraping roughly against the hardwood floor, and something _breaking _–

Wait, what?

_Oh, god._

_

* * *

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**Thank you for reading!**** Feedback appreciated! **

**Have a great weekend :)**

**xxx**

**Malice Cat**

**Next: **_**Rubato**_


	8. Rubato

**I am incredibly, incredibly sorry for the cliffhanger in **_**Presto**_**. I'll try to avoid them in future chapters, but I can't make any promises (lol). My plot layout for Tempo actually reads out like "Chapter 15: Jared dies. CLIFFHANGER". True story (except for the Jared dying part. Put your pitchforks away, please.)**

**As always, thanks to everyone who reviewed! KeepSteady, Gryffindor Gurl2, Three AM, Lena Tyrins, fireylight, butterskew, Ophelia, JayD (south park reference ftw lol), musicmakesfun, Izzy Rose and angel-cake – you all are made of awesome. My past week has been stress-filled and very angsty, and your reviews cheered me up loads :) Thank you.  
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_**8. Rubato**_

_**xxx**_

**Wednesday, January ****25th**

I don't know where to begin.

Honestly. I've been trying to pull it together for the past half an hour, simply staring at the blank page in front of me, pen in hand.

I guess… I guess I'll start where I last left off. At Sam's house.

Right. It was late. Or early, depending on how you want to look at it. I was sitting there on Sam's couch, minding my own business and _not_ eavesdropping on the conversation between his fianc_é_e and his boyfriend. Then things took a turn for the worse when I heard a sudden crash coming from the direction of the kitchen.

I sat there on the couch, momentarily frozen, before the sound of something else shattering jolted me into action.

I didn't know what to expect as I took a few unsteady steps towards the kitchen and rounded the corner – _nothing_ could have prepared me for the scene that lay before me, though. The kitchen was fine, save for the broken glass next to the stove. The door was another matter entirely. It was gone.

Yep. _Gone._ It looked like it'd been ripped straight off the hinges. Bits of splintered wood lay scattered on the floor, and was that… shouting?

"It's fine." The sound of Emily's strained voice next to me was startling, though no more startling than the gaping hole in the wall where the door had once been. "The boys had… a minor disagreement."

I stared at the scattered bits of broken door. "What's going on? Is Jared – is Jared alright?" And on autopilot, I was moving towards the doorway.

"Kim, _wait._" Emily reached out a hand, but I was already halfway across the room.

_There._ Sounds of a scuffle. I picked up the pace. And –

"_You fucking asshole._"

I froze on the steps.

It was dark out, but the moonlight made things that much easier to see.

Sam was there. Paul, as well. And Jared.

I could make out Sam's taller, rugged form – he was standing in the middle, holding Paul and Jared apart. The two looked like they were straining against his hold, and they looked…

… they looked like they were out for _blood_.

There's no other way to put it. I was terrified. The promise of violence hung so thickly in the air that it was almost suffocating.

_I'm dreaming. This can't be happening._

But in dreams, you wake up and everything's all right again.

This was no dream.

"What the _hell_ were you thinking?" Jared's voice was nothing short of feral. His teeth were bared, his eyes wide, and every nuance of his rigid stance screamed _I'm going to rip your head off_.

Paul's response was no less terrifying. The entire length of his body radiated fury. Fists balled, bare feet digging into the earth, muscles on his arms clenching and unclenching. "You have a shitload of nerve saying that to me," he snapped, lips curling upward in a cruel sneer. "At least I didn't bust her fucking head open while I was at it!"

Jared's answering snarl sent ice up my spine. It was so ferocious, so… _animal_, and there was something horribly _familiar_ about that sound, but I just couldn't place it…

"Break it up." Sam's voice was calmly authorative, but there was a distinct hint of warning in it. His eyes alighted on my still form in the doorway. It was probably a trick of the moonlight, but for a moment – for a moment, I thought his eyes were glowing. But that's not possible.

… Right?

I mean, brown eyes glow orange-yellow all the time. Pssh. Like, look at a sun lamp and at the right angle, and _voil__à_, funky eyes. I remember this one time, when me and Charles were out on the front lawn –

I digress.

Weird, glowy eyes aside, being caught in Sam's gaze was scary in a whole other sense. It was magnetic and oppressive at the same time. My heartbeat was a dull thudding in my ears as time seemed to crawl on, until he looked away, hands moving to shove the two Quileute boys apart as they continued to strain at each other.

"I said _break it up_," Sam enunciated lowly. I could almost hear his patience wearing thin. "We have company."

In that instant, all three sets of eyes moved to meet mine.

I could only look at Jared. His breathing was slightly uneven as his eyes bored into mine. _Those eyes_. This is going to sound crazy, but… they weren't his eyes. This wasn't the boy I'd crushed on for the past decade. Not even close. The young, carefree boy I'd been in love with was gone, replaced by something dark and violent and _hardened_, something that clenched around my heart painfully and made me want to weep at its loss.

I don't know if the mish-mash of emotions and jumbled thoughts translated onto my face, but the weight of all three gazes on me had my knees weakening. _Not good_. Instinctively, I grabbed at the ruined doorframe for support, only to jerk away and stare dumbly at my palm when the pain kicked in.

Blood.

I don't think I've ever witnessed such a violent reaction to blood before. In the few seconds it took for me to marvel at the stream of vivid crimson trailing down my hand, Jared was at my side. He was cursing violently, rough hands reaching up to wrap around my wrist, his intimidatingly large form all but backing me into the kitchen.

Trapped between a still-cursing Jared and a concerned Emily, I could make out Paul's raw voice outside.

"_Fuck,_" he snapped. "Just what we need."

"Paul." Sam said warningly. Then he was in the kitchen, too, his presence no less daunting up close. His brows furrowed as he gazed at my open wound, which was still oozing blood all over the table.

Emily was a blur as she moved to open a first aid kit, nimble fingers pulling out a bottle of iodine and spare cotton. I simply stared, wide-eyed at the sudden shift in atmosphere.

Jared's presence next to mine was unsettling. I hadn't quite come to terms with the fact that he was no longer the _same_, so to speak. It was much like having a complete stranger sit uncomfortably close to you on the bus – kind of like that, but with the discomfort amplified tenfold because that stranger normally doesn't _growl_ at you while you're having blood cleaned off your hand.

Yep. You heard me. He was _growling._

Not like one of those angry, yappy dogs you run into on walks, either. Oh, no. This was more along the lines of _Cujo_ before he went ballistic and killed everyone.

There was nowhere I could look. I couldn't look at Jared. I couldn't look at Sam. I couldn't look at Emily – up close, her scars were terrifying and I was worried that I might throw up. Paul was still cursing a steady stream outside.

So I looked at the blood.

Oh, the _blood_. Turns out I'd sliced my left palm clean open on one of the splinters, and the resulting wound was not a pretty sight. Emily dabbed at the edges of the cut with a towel, murmuring soothingly as I continued staring numbly at my hand. It wasn't that bad. Aside from the sting from the pressure of the towel, I thought I was in pretty good shape.

…Then the iodine went on.

_Son of a WHORE!_ _It hurts it hurts it hurts oh my god it hurts - _

My resulting flinch had Jared jerking reflexively next to me, his palm gripping my thigh so hard that I genuinely feared I'd have a broken leg to add to my already stellar list of injuries.

The growling got louder. Through the haze of burning pain, I managed to discern the baritone of Sam's voice over Emily's apologetic murmurs, as she gently wiped the iodine off and wrapped my palm up with a thin gauze.

"That should hold for a day or two," she said, catching my gaze. "It's not a deep cut, thankfully. Do you have bandages at home?"

It took a few seconds to pull myself together. "Yeah," I said. "I'll – I'll keep it dry."

The worry in her eyes made my discomfort at the whole situation skyrocket. I don't know if Emily read it in my face, or if she somehow figured it out on her own, but it was hard not to let my shoulders sag tellingly in relief when she finally said, "Let's get you home, Kim."

I rose quickly from the table, ignoring the rush of blood to my head as Jared rose with me, his warm hand at the small of my back.

I stopped at the doorway. "My bag," I explained weakly, and I barely had to time to look appropriately sheepish before Sam moved away and reappeared with it gripped in his large hand.

Mumbling a quick thank you in his direction, I made my way back down the stairs, trailing after Emily as she headed to a classic jeep parked around the corner. Jared never left my side.

"Thanks, Emily." I said, trying to ignore the sensation of Jared's palm pressing hard against my back. "Sorry about all of this."

In the moonlight, the unscarred half of her face was ethereal in its beauty. "It's not your fault, Kim."

I could only stare at my feet.

"Let's go." Her voice was heavy, somehow. I moved to grab the handle of the jeep door, but Jared beat me to it. His russet hand closed around the metal handle, engulfing it, his other arm moving to usher me to the side as the door swung open.

"Thanks," I said, studiously avoiding his gaze as I climbed in, bookbag in tow. What I didn't expect was him clambering in after me, snagging the door shut with his foot.

Emily slid the keys into the ignition, and the engine roared to life. "Where to?"

"I live down by the Clearwater's." I said, flexing my hand experimentally as I tried to shift a little farther away from Jared, whose large form was making me feel increasingly claustrophobic.

"Take a right at the crossing," he said shortly, as Emily directed the car down Sam Uley's Hiking Slope of Doom. His agitation was impossible to ignore – every shift of his body spoke of reined-in tension, his blunt nails digging into the flesh of his thigh.

It was an agonizingly long drive, made even more so by what felt like mounting unease coming off Jared and Emily in waves. When the jeep finally pulled down the familiar road, I was only too happy to bolt. I had to climb over Jared first, though, which was equal parts awkward and horrifying when he wrapped an arm firmly around my waist and lifted me out of the jeep with him.

He closed the door behind him. I managed a quick wave to Emily before Jared started herding me towards the house.

"You don't have to walk me to the door," I squeaked. "I'm good. Really."

In response, he tightened the grip on my arm ever so slightly. His eyes were darting here and there, and he was taking in deep breaths of the wintry air. And he was still shirtless. I didn't see how he managed to run around all night in the cold and not catch hypothermia – but then again, he had that layer of muscle. I could work out for years and never hit that level of musculature (and by working out, I mean… doing push ups in my room. Or stomach crunches with my feet propped up on the couch. Or maybe doing some jumping jacks while waiting for the water to boil. You get the idea).

I tugged at his elbow, distracting him from his perusal of the surroundings. "I'm going in through the window," I said, voice hushed. "I don't have a key."

I locked gazes with him for a moment, but the winter chill was starting to bite in, and the knowledge that the comforts of my warm, toasty bedroom were a mere few paces away kicked my body into gear. I pulled away from Jared and started making my way round the side of the house, picking up the pace when my window finally came into view –

" – Kim."

_So close._

"Yeah?"

"Be careful." He sounded pained. "I don't want you to get hurt."

I stared at him, my bandaged hand propped on the windowsill as I tried to formulate a response. "Um… alright."

Slowly, as if not to startle me, Jared reached out and gently held my injured hand in his, before bending over and pressing his nose against my neck.

My heart was pounding, _hard_. Having the boy-who-was-Jared-but-not-Jared so close sent all my senses haywire. _Oh my god. This is actually happening. This is __real__. I'm not hallucinating, am I?_

I don't know how long we stood there outside my window. It could've been five minutes, an hour. All I knew was that he was _there_, tall and warm and safe and smelling like heaven. I'd never wanted anything else so badly in my entire life. I wanted to curl up next to him, burrow inside his warmth and stay there forever. I wanted _him._

_But he's not the same boy you knew_, the little voice in my head protested. _You saw him just now, with Sam and Paul. There's something wrong with him and you know it._

"Jared," I murmured, and I felt him shift away ever-so-slightly, a move that had our faces inches apart. I scarcely dared to breathe. "… We're friends, right?"

His eyes were so dark, they were almost obsidian. When he didn't reply, I pressed on.

"I mean…" I stared down at our linked hands, licking my dry lips. "If there was something wrong, you'd – you'd tell me, right?"

His expression was unreadable. "Yes."

"About Paul –"

"What about him?" There was an edge in Jared's voice. I felt his fingers tighten imperceptibly around mine.

"Why were you fighting?"

I saw his jaw shift, his gaze hardening as his eyes pinned mine. "Stay away from him, Kim."

The twinge of frustration that followed was unexpected. "You didn't answer my question."

He exhaled sharply. "We had a… disagreement."

"A disagreement." My voice was flat. "And I suppose you all go around breaking doors during your disagreements?"

He sighed. "it's difficult to explain."

I set my jaw stubbornly. "Try me."

I watched as he took a deep breath, chest rising with the movement as he straightened, closing his eyes briefly before meeting my gaze dead on.

"I'm a werewolf."

Silence.

With strength I didn't know I possessed, I wrested my hands away from his, wincing a little when the sudden motion had my wound twinging with pain. I climbed back through my window, slammed it shut, and yanked at the curtains until they fell into place.

So… that's the whole story.

It's five in the morning. I'm tired, angry, and cold.

And the boy I used to be in love with is an asshole.

**xxx**

**Wednesday, January 2****5****th****, later**

He didn't come to class today.

* * *

**Thursday, January 2****6****th**

Not today, either.

I don't care anymore.

* * *

**Friday, January 2****7****th**

School holiday today, so I got to sleep in.

Ma helped me change my bandages again before she left for work (read: she did all the work while I drifted in and out of sleep on the bed), so it was kind of nice. I never really get to sleep in nowadays, and the extra workload from missing so much school has me kind of stretched thin.

Yawning, I reached for the phone and speed-dialed Jamie.

"Morning, sleepyhead." It's the weirdest thing. She _always _ knows when it's me calling. No joke. And I know for a fact that she doesn't have caller ID.

"Heyyyy," I groaned into the reciever, stretching and feeling my vertebrae pop into place.

"What's up?"

I rubbed the sleep from my eyes. "Not much. Wanna hang out today?"

"Sure. What're you up for?"

"Mmmm… I don't know. Anything."

I could practically hear the roll of her eyes over the phone. "Cliff diving, then?"

Laughing into my pillow, I felt my spirits lift as the familiar banter brought a smile to my face. "Sure," I grinned. "Maybe we can do some hardcore dirt biking afterwards, too."

She did laugh at that. "Kim Connweller on a dirt bike," she mused. "I can see it now."

Shifting a little so that my elbows propped me up on the bed, I fumbled for the clock radio and focused on the flashing digits – 10:49. Yikes.

"Let's do something crazy today," I suggested.

"This is La Push we're talking about. The craziest thing would be to cliff dive, and I don't think you need your head split open again."

I subconciously rubbed at the old wound on my forehead – mostly faded, but still there. "Let's drive off the rez, then. I'll even pitch in for gas."

I could hear the beginnings of interest in her voice. "Where to, then?"

"How does Neah Bay sound?" Neah Bay's the Makah rez up north. It's a lot like La Push, but with less of the sleepy town quality. It's also a two hour drive away.

"Sounds good." A few of Jamie's cousins live on the Makah rez, and her family drives up sometimes to visit. "I haven't seen Barker and the gang in a while. We could stop by for a bit."

"Definitely," I said, shrugging off the covers and hopping off the bed.

"I'll be at your house in half an hour. Don't be late." She hung up.

I had a retort ready for her "don't be late" comment, but was too excited at the prospect of getting out of town (even if it was just for a couple of hours). Neah Bay's a pretty awesome place. It's always abuzz with beach parties and gatherings and stuff, and the kids on the rez are all really friendly.

"I'm going out," I said, breezing past a sleepy Charles, who was sprawled on the couch, remote in hand.

He grunted in response. "More TV time for me."

I moved in a flurry of activity as I started packing travel rations into a duffel bag. _Chips,water, maybe some sandwiches…_

"Where're you going?"

"Neah Bay." I stuck out my tongue at him. "And no, you can't come."

He rolled his eyes. "Wouldn't want to go there anyway," he grouched. "That place is _lame._"

"It's not lame," I protested. "It's really fun."

"Name one _fun_ thing you can do there that you can't do right here."

"Well," I said, teasingly. "For starters, you won't be there. That, in itself, means I'll have heaps of fun."

I had to duck to avoid the cushion that came flying towards my head.

"Don't come bawling your eyes out to me when the big bad Makah kids kick you off their rez," Charles drawled, though there was a trace of humor in his voice, so I knew he wasn't really offended.

"Yeah, yeah." I was laughing as I headed back into my room to get changed. Tossing a bunch of last-minute additions into my bag, I swung it over my shoulder and bounded down the corridor towards the front door. "Bye!"

"Don't come back at two in the morning. Danny'll skin you alive."

I let out a huff of exasperation as I moved to pull on my boots. "When have I ever –"

…Oh, wait.

_Does four a.m. count?_ Inner Kim was sniggering. _Already slipped your mind? You're getting old._

My lips thinned, and I took a deep breath and opened the door.

Paul was there.

I was… _startled_, to say the least. He had his hands tucked in the front pockets of his jeans as he leaned against one of the narrow beams on the porch, as casual as can be.

"Paul?" I gaped at him, hurriedly closing the door behind me. "What're you doing here?"

He ignored my question, raising his brows as he slowly took me in. "Going somewhere, Princess?"

"Yeah," I said warily, only too aware of the fact that our last few encounters had ended in disaster. "Why?"

"No reason." His canines gleamed as he flashed me a toothy smile. "Where're you headed?"

My eyes narrowed. "None of your business."

He pushed off the beam easily, straightening his lean form with a easy shift of his broad shoulders. "And if I make it my business?"

My mouth opened with a snarky retort, but I was interrupted by the sound of honking.

Jamie.

"I gotta go," I muttered, shouldering the strap of the duffel and heading towards the car.

His arm caught mine, darting forward in a movement so fast I thought I'd imagined it. The sharp pressure burning into my skin told me otherwise.

"And just where d'you think you're going?"

I glared at him. "_Away from you_," I snapped. "Let go."

"You're not leaving."

"Yes, I _am._" Fury was mounting in my veins. "Don't tell me what to do."

His answering sneer was infuriating. "Cry me a river, sweetheart. We all got our own problems, and I _really_ could care less about whatever shit you're trying to pull right now. But I'm under orders to keep you here, and I'll be damned if I let you out of my sight –"

I don't know where it came from. I think I may have lost it for a second there – it was a wholly out-of-body experience, I'll tell you that. I'm still feeling mortified, even as I'm writing this all down.

I kicked him.

In the… groin.

It was a knee-jerk response. I couldn't have stopped it if I wanted to.

… Okay, maybe I could've. But there was a sick sort of satisfaction in watching a guy twice your size go down with one well-aimed kick to the family jewels.

I stood there dumbly for a moment, before the realization of _what I'd done_ registered in my mind (_kicked Paul in the nuts kicked Paul in the nuts oh my god_). Whatever guilt I may have felt passed quickly, though, and I took off for Jamie's car like hellhounds were on my tail.

It's kind of liberating, though. I can't believe he went down so easily –

"- Are you going to spend the entire drive over writing in that diary of yours?" Jamie sounds cranky. I think she's been trying to talk to me for the past five minutes or so. Oops.

Later, then. Neah Bay awaits!

* * *

**Thanks for reading! Feedback appreciated :)**

**(Who else is going to watch Eclipse when it gets released in theaters? I forced – er, nicely asked Boyfriend to get tickets, ****but he just gave me one of his bitch-faces. So I put my foot down and said that if he wasn't going to man it up and watch it with me, I'd shave off his eyebrows in his sleep. So now he's being all mopey and grouchy about it, which is nothing short of hilarious. Pfft. **_**Men.**_** Amirite? :p ) **

**xxx**

**Malice Cat**

**Next: **_**Piu vivo**_


	9. Piu vivo

**Hey guys. I'm truly sorry for not updating earlier, but things have been… difficult. ****Sorry if I haven't been replying reviews/PMs, my life is utterly shit atm and I'm seesawing a lot between depression and general perkiness (the caffiene helps.) **

**To all those who reviewed the last chapter: ****Izzy Rose, Natasja, 42****nd**** Blackbone, EmmettTeam, megagenie, KeepSteady, 3, fireylight, Lena Tyrins, person-who-did-not-leave-name-and-will-henceforth-be-known-as-'Blanky', Eleanor J., butterskew, 1stp Klosr, eeyore-ft-tigger, alicecullenisrealinmyworld, GrumpySunshine, Electraa, charlienessa, flaM1nGo, LadyMonday and queenamz– thank you so much!**

**

* * *

**

_**9. Piu vivo**_

**xxx**

**Friday, January 27****th**

I'm stuck in Neah Bay.

Nope, it's not a joke. I really am stranded here.

I think the dark clouds looming in the distance were a bit of a giveaway when Jamie and I drove into town. La Push has its fair share of winter storms, as well – but they're nothing like the ones you get in Neah Bay. Because so many of the houses are coastal (which just so happens to include the one I'm camped in right now), it's like winning a front row seat to watching Mother Nature throw a giant hissy fit.

It's awe-inspiring and scary at the same time. Gale force winds are blowing, electric blue lightning is flashing across the night sky, and the rolling thunder… Oh, the _thunder_. It's majestic.

The electricity's out, by the way. I'm writing via candlelight. How awesome is that?

The storm doesn't seem to be subsiding anytime soon – I managed to borrow Jamie's cell to call home to let Ma and the guys know that I'd probably only be returning the next day. The connection had some bad static, though, so I'm not entirely sure if the message got through.

But I'm getting ahead of myself, I think.

To be honest, I kind of knew there was a possibilty that we'd get stormed in here. It's just… I needed to get away, you know? Staying in La Push for the entire long weekend meant sitting in my room, stewing about the whole Jared situation. And I've been trying not to think about that.

Yeah.

How am I _not _ supposed to think about it, though? My mind's one messed up jumble. I'm so confused. He's gay. And for a moment there I thought he wasn't, but then he got into that weird fight with Paul and _ARGH_, this is really messing me up.

And don't even get me started on that whole "werewolf" comment. I mean, _seriously_? A werewolf? Did he actually think that was funny? Like I'd actually see the humor in the whole thing and laugh it off like we were _chums_, or something? I… I meant what I said when I told him that he could tell me anything. I was ready to be his friend. And for him to just play it off, like it was stupid – like _I _was stupid – it hurt.

It really hurt.

I'm pissed just thinking about it. Hell, I'm pissed just thinking about _him._

So I guess it's official.

I'm swearing off Jared.

And you'd think that I'd have a hard time doing it, too – considering how I'd all but been in love with the guy for the past decade. But to be fair, that was all before he proved himself to be champion asshole of the universe.

I need to move on.

I know I've said this before. The whole _moving on_ thing isn't exactly a new concept to me. I mean it this time, though. I'm tired of waiting for my life to start. Tired of waiting for him. Tired of myself.

* * *

**Saturday****, January 28****th****, early**

God, I'm exhausted. I want nothing more than to crawl under the covers and pass out, but the alcohol in my system's keeping me awake.

Yeah… you heard me right. Alcohol. It's been a long night.

The storm subsided around… 1am in the morning? The thunder sort of died down and the clouds drifted away to reveal an endlessly starry sky – mesmerizing it it's own way, I suppose. I was curled up on my perch, trying not to think about the Jared situation and failing, before Jamie came and dragged me to the beach.

I gotta say, the kids in Neah Bay sure know how to party it up. I wasn't prepared for the sudden change in atmosphere, that's for sure. I was so mired in melancholy that when the first round of fireworks went off, I jolted straight off the log I was seated on and ended up face-first in the sand.

Laughter. I wanted to dig a hole where I was and bury myself in it. Fortunately, I didn't have to – I felt a slight pressure on my arm pulling me up, and it was with some reluctance that I put my muscles into it and moved into a kneeling position.

"Ugh." I groaned, swiping my sleeve over my face (which felt like I'd just had a layer of skin exfoliated clean off).

"… alright?"

Belatedly, I blinked and turned to the source of the voice, only vaguely registering the smiling girl that had apparently helped me up. She looked familiar, so we'd probably met before – I was terrible with names, though.

"I'm fine, thanks," I said, raising my voice slightly to be heard over the loud music that was all but blasting into my ears.

She grinned. "Great!" Her lips moved to form more words, but I couldn't catch anything she said, probably since a new batch of fireworks went off a few meters away from the both of us. _Gah_. _I want to go back inside._

She thrust an empty plastic cup into my hand, and I could only stare at it for a moment in incomprehension – did she want me to hold it for her? Was I supposed to fill it up with sand?

My brows furrowed. "Thank… you?"

She caught the confused look on my face and her grin got wider. Motioning for me to stand (which I did, albeit reluctantly), she tugged at the sleeve of my jacket and led me away from the crowded bonfire.

"You're Kim Connweller, right?" Even though we were moving further away from the hubbub, I still had to strain my ears to pick up what she was saying.

"Yeah," I said, stumbling a little when my foot caught on a stray log. "Sorry… have we met before?"

"Oh, no," she said, laughing as she drained what was left in her cup in a single gulp. The both of us ducked then, narrowly avoiding getting hit by an overexcited guy's surfboard as he hoisted it over his shoulder – the others around us weren't as lucky.

I blinked. "Wow. He's going surfing _now_? It's freezing out."

"Wazzat?"

"I said –" _this is going to be impossible _"- uh, never mind."

She gave me a quizzical look, before gesturing for me to follow her as we weaved through the throngs of people. Mostly kids my age; some older, some younger. Population wise, Neah Bay and La Push are just about on par, but where the reservations really differ is the youth scene. When the Neah Bay kids have a party, _everyone_ turns up and has a great time. When La Push kids have a party… well, I wouldn't know what would happen, considering I've never even been to one. I hear the Tribal Council holds some sort of bonfire event each year, but I don't even think that would constitute as a party since the Council elders would be there, and really – I can't imagine Billy Black doing the boogie in _any_ situation. I'm not even sure I would want to imagine it happening.

Just… no.

We finally managed to get a fair distance away from all the noise – not too far from the string of bonfires, though. Winter nights weren't exactly forgiving in Washington.

"So, uh… how _do_ you know me, again?" I shoved my free hand into the pocket of my parka, shifting from side to side in a futile effort to warm up.

She giggled. That was when I belatedly realized that she was probably teetering on the edge of being drunk, if the wild look in her eyes was any indication.

She gave me a serious look, which was dampened somewhat by the fact that she only had one shoe on. "I think your brother's _really_ hot," she said, lips pursing slightly as she swatted at something in front of her face. She looked at me again. "_Really _hot."

"Oh," I said. "Um… that's great. And a little gross. Which brother are we talking about here?"

I might as well have been speaking in Latin. Her face scrunched up in a look of incomprehension, before she slapped a hand to her forehead and groaned. "I forgot to put my socks on!"

_How drunk__ is__ this girl, exactly?_ I cast around my gaze frantically around us in an attempt to catch someone's eye as my newfound acquaintance pitched forward. I had to drop the cup I was holding to make a grab towards her waist as she staggered forward, nearly sending the both of us toppling onto the sand.

The smell of alcohol hit my nostrils. I heard laughter all around us, more blaring music and fireworks. Inner Kim wasn't too happy. _How on earth do you keep getting yourself in these kinds of situations?_

I _am _glad to admit that the thought of leaving the poor girl behind didn't even cross my mind. _Hoes over bros_, as Jamie calls it.

_Where's Jamie when you need her? _My voice was slightly muffled by the fabric of her pullover as I finally managed a "Let's get you home, yeah?" before fumbling with the mechanics of draping a very uncooperative stranger that was all but dead weight over my shoulder.

It took a fair bit of staggering around at first (especially since the person I was trying to carry along the beach probably outweighed me by thirty pounds or so) but I'd like to think that we got the hang of it after the first twenty paces. That was before her shoed foot snagged on a branch, and the both of us went down.

_Ow._

"Need some help?"

"Mmmrph," was all I could get out with a mouthful of sand. I heard a quick male laugh, before a warm arm hauled me up into a sitting position. Next to me, the cause of my second faceplant giggled happily, seemingly content in her latest attempts to make a sand angel.

The despairing look on my sand-plastered face must have been truly piteous, because I got another laugh out of the guy who'd helped me up. I raised my eyes to take him in – Native American, long hair that fell in a braid over his shoulder, a wide smile that reached his eyes.

"Looks like Hazel's been hitting the stash early," he grinned, nudging at my companion's back with a sandaled foot. In response, she rolled back over and stuck out her tongue, before righting herself clumsily (a slow process that took several tries). I was half-worried that she'd trip on the branch and pitch over again, but she didn't even take two steps before she was hoisted on the shoulders of a huge guy built like a linebacker, who promptly took off full speed down towards the main bonfire to the sounds of whooping and cheering from everyone in the vicinity.

From my position on the sand, I could only laugh. The atmosphere on the beach was heady, and the energy of the party-goers was enough to keep me pleasantly buzzed, even though my face felt like I'd just taken a cheese grater to it.

"You might want to stand up before someone trips over you." He held out his hand, and I took it gratefully, using the sleeve of my other arm to brush the sand grains off my cheek as I got to my feet.

"Is it always this crazy here?"

He laughed again. "Pretty much," he admitted. "Small town syndrome. You either live it up or you die of boredom. Living it up can get boring after a while, though."

More fireworks went off in the distance. "So… you die of boredom, either way?"

He smiled. "There are worse ways to go, probably. I'd take boredom over a knife wound any day. Where're you from?"

I blinked at the non-sequitur. "Um… La Push."

"Ah, a kindred spirit. So you're a fellow sufferer, eh?" At my raised brows, he continued. "You know what they say. Misery _loves_ company. We gotta share the small town love." His eyes were dancing with amusement, and I felt an inadvertent tug of attraction, which surprised me.

I didn't want to mull over the implications of what that meant, though – all the Jared drama had weighed so heavily on my mind for the past few days that all I wanted to do was stop _thinking._ And here… here was someone who _wasn't _Jared and _wasn't_ going to be an utter asshole and there wouldn't be any crazy baggage of _I've loved you secretly for the past ten years but I'd rather go cliff diving than admit it_.

Besides, it's not like anything was going to come out of it, right?

I stuck out my hand. "I'm Kim, by the way."

There was a short pause, and for a moment, I genuinely thought that I'd screwed up the whole introduction process by being too formal. Did people still shake hands? Was there some unspoken taboo on shaking hands in Neah Bay that I didn't know about? Did I just completely make a fool out of –

I never got to finish that thought. Faster than I could blink, I was hoisted up in the exact same manner as Drunk Girl – Hazel, right – my ribs digging into his shoulder as I clutched at the clothes on his back, legs flailing. "Agghh!"

"I'm Ralph," he informed me, sounding wickedly amused. I wanted to smack him, but twisting around proved impossible, and I feared that any violent attempts to get off would send me falling face-first into the sand for the third time that day (twice was _more _than enough, thank you). Thankfully, it was only a few quick paces and… to be completely honest, the view from the back wasn't all that bad.

When he finally put me down, I managed to gather as much ire as I could, scowling at his grinning face as I tried to steady my feet. "Don't make me slap you."

If anything, his grin got even more mischievous. "That's how we say hello on this rez."

"What, slapping?"

I didn't see it coming. Before I could snark at him some more, his lips were on mine.

My brain promptly shut down. The kiss itself probably didn't last more than a few seconds, but all I was aware of was my heart pounding, the sudden closeness of his face to mine, and the fresh round of cheering and raucous whoops that erupted around us. When he pulled away, still smiling, I could only gape at him, wide-eyed.

"You have pretty eyes," he informed me.

I stood rooted to the spot, my mouth opening and closing as I struggled to find the words. _Oh my god. Did he just kiss me? Was that my first kiss?_

_Scoreeeeee_, Inner Kim hooted.

I finally galvanized my tongue into action a moment later, feeling my cheeks flush crimson as our gazes locked. "Um, Ralph…" His name felt oddly foreign on my tongue.

"Yeah?" he hummed, a slight smile still etched on his face.

"Why did you –" I was pretty sure I was red as a tomato by this point. "Uhh, why did you… do that?"

His head was tilted to the side as he contemplated my question. "Because I wanted to."

"Oh."

The mischievous grin was back. "Why? Did you not want me to?"

"No, I –" I cut myself off, hit by a wave of an emotion that I couldn't quite place, leaving me feeling slightly disorientated. "I mean, I don't know. I just wasn't… prepared for it."

"I'll give you fair warning the next time."

Looking at his boyish smile, I had no idea if he was being serious with that statement. _The __next_ _time? Was there going to be a next time?_

"Ralph, my mannn!" I instinctively backed away some as he was accosted by a small cluster of guys, all of whom looked extremely high spirited. There was back-clapping and fist bumps all around, and I watched the male social ritual at its finest in detached fascination.

To my alarm, one of the guys noticed me – not that I was trying to hide, I was merely positioning myself behind a wooden torch and trying to blend in, honest – and there really was no point trying to get away after that. There were loud, messy introductions all around, with the guys cutting each other off with a lot of good-natured ribbing in between, and the next thing I knew, I was being propelled towards the edge of the party. My head was reeling from all the names that had been thrown in my direction, and I was having difficulty trying to recall if the tall guy in the chieftain's headgear was a Davy or a Damon when I finally realised where I was being herded off to.

The booze corner.

To clarify: I _have_ imbibed in alcohol before. Jamie had Barker sneak us some of his stash last year, and it was a completely neutral experience for me. I didn't even get tipsy (probably because it was just light beers that were so bitter that I had to wash down most of it with soda) so I can't say that I get the hype of it all.

Ralph handed me a cup with some sort of orange-ish drink in it, and an experimental sip had me pulling a face.

"It's strong stuff," he said, laughing at my grimace. "Don't drink too much, now."

"I don't think I will," I said, and the both of us hung back and watched as the dude with the surfboard earlier ran headlong into the group, initiating a fresh round of fist bumping.

The silence wasn't unwelcome – I needed to process, and my mind felt a little fuzzy from the sudden onslaught of activity. Plus, it was waaaay past my bedtime, so I wasn't doing any real thinking. I felt blissfully blank as I took intermittent sips from my cup, Ralph at my side, his own drink in hand.

My cup finally emptied a while later. I glanced sideways to check on Ralph's progress, and it seemed that he'd finished his a while a ago and had settled for staring into the distance.

"I think I'll head back," I murmured, which snapped him out of his reverie.

His gaze was slightly unfocused as it settled on my empty cup, then on me. "To La Push?"

I shook my head, feeling the exhaustion start to kick in. "Staying at Barker's house," I said. "Do you know him?"

"Yeah, I do," he said, letting out a chuckle. He made a motion towards the direction where we'd came and we started making our way back. The party was still in full-gear.

Barker's house wasn't too far off from the main beach, and we walked in companionable silence along the asphalt path for a while. We finally came to a halt a few steps away form the porch steps, and I felt a small amount of anxiety return at the awkward situation that was sure to come – what was the protocol when saying goodnight to a stranger you'd just shared your first kiss with? A wave? A hug? A peck on the cheek?

Thankfully, the decision was taken out of my hands when he leaned over and wrapped me in a quick hug. I think the tiredness I felt at that point sort of leeched all the emotion out of me – it took all the energy I could muster to reach up and give him a weak pat on the back. _Huh. This is weird._

"I'll see you around, huh?" The smile he flashed me was slightly muted, probably a reflection of my own.

"Yep," I managed, though I seriously doubted I'd ever see the guy again. Ever. Neah Bay isn't that far from La Push, and I suppose if I was _really_ into the guy I'd be able to come up with any number of excuses to drive down every other weekend… but I just couldn't see it happening.

A quick wave, and he was loping off back towards the beach. I watched his retreating form until it was swallowed up by a fresh throng of partygoers in the distance.

I think I stood on the porch for a long time.

**xxx**

**Saturday, January 28****th**

"What's _wrong_ with you?"

"I'm fine, Jamie."

"…Spit it out, Connweller. I don't have all day."

"I'm _really_ fine. Shouldn't you be concentrating on the road? I'm not a cat, you know."

Silence.

"… I don't have nine lives."

"I _got_ it the first time round," she snapped. She floored the gas a little harder, making the tires squeal as the car navigated a bumpy left. _Someone's got a hangover_, Inner Kim snorted.

Next to me, Jamie was cursing up a storm she sighted a black SUV in the rearview mirror tailgating. "God, these stupid assholes. There's two –" She wound down the window in agitation and made a hand gesture that probably have had me grounded for a month if I'd attempted it with Danny in sight. "_There's two fucking lanes on this road, dickwad!_"

_Oookay_. I sank in my seat and tried to block out the scene unfolding around me. _Maybe I should lay low until her headache passes. Yeah, that sounds like a good idea._

Lost in my own thoughts, my mind was free to drift as I closed my eyes and tried to focus. Ever since we'd left La Push, I'd been feeling… odd, like my world was off-kilter and the slightest nudge would tip me over. It was a very weird sensation. I wasn't entirely sure if I was coming down with something – maybe it was the flu? That couldn't be good. The last thing I needed was to miss more school and lose all the headway I'd made over the past few days.

And about the first kiss thing… I just couldn't bring myself to tell Jamie about it, either. She was my best friend, and although we'd sworn on not keeping the details of life-changing events from each other – first kisses included – I didn't know if what I was feeling was normal.

I don't know how to put it in words. It wasn't so much as what I was feeling, but rather, what I _wasn't_ feeling. Years and years of chick flicks had taught me that a first kiss was always special; that cheesy, romantic music was supposed to play in your head when it happened; that just _thinking_ about it afterwards would bring a smile to your face.

None of that was happening for me.

This couldn't possibly be normal, could it? Was there something _wrong_ with me? Was I… I don't know – _defective_, or something? The guy was cute enough. Hell, I was even attracted to him at some point last night. And I'd all but decided to move on a few hours before. If I'd been anything resembling normal, I'd have run around in ecstatic circles (internally) before yanking Jamie aside by her hair to tell her all about it. But I hadn't.

And it was weird.

The rain started to come down again as we neared the edges of the reservation. Thankfully, Jamie's headache seemed to have cleared some, and she was much, _much_ better at driving in the rain than I ever would be, so I wasn't too worried about the weaving roads leading back into La Push. What _was _worrying, though, was the unfamiliar sounds of howling in the distance.

Yep. _Howling._

Even with the windows wound up, we could still make out the unsettling sounds, ringing out one after the other. The howling only seemed to get louder as we drove into town. It was eerie.

"This is creepy," I muttered, leaning forward in my seat to peer through the rain-splattered windshield at the familiar town landmarks as they whizzed by. "What do you think it is?"

"If I had to guess?" Jamie slowed the car a little at the intersection, then picked up speed again. "Wolves, probably. Haven't you heard the stories?"

"Yeah," I admitted. "But those are just legends, right?"

She lifted a shoulder in a half-shrug, letting out a loud exhalation as she kicked the wipers into high gear. The rain was really coming down hard at that point, and visibility dropped so low that Jamie was forced to slow the car to a crawl, albeit reluctantly.

My stomach clenched uncomfortably. "You don't think there are actually _wolves_ roaming the rez, do you?"

Another shrug, though this one came with an air of annoyance when a large truck cut in in front of us. "What does it matter? They'll just get shot if they come too close." The truck slowed to a stop. Jamie cursed.

Something at the back of my mind was jostling for my attention – Inner Kim was saying something, too, but I was still peering out of the window. Something was amiss. Through the sheets of rain and the encroaching fog, I _squinted_, and –

A dark shape flashed past the window.

I nearly jumped out of my seat. "Oh my god." My eyes were wide. "Did you see that?"

Jamie had jerked, as well, though it was probably an instinctive reflex to my reaction. "See what?"

"_That_," I said, frantically gesturing towards the window, where the shape had been. "That _thing_."

Her brows were furrowed as she leaned over, directing her gaze to where mine was – at the pouring rain outside my window. "… I don't see anything."

My heart was pumping overtime, and my breaths were coming out at an unsteady, rapid pace. "Jamie, d'you… d'you think –" I felt my fingers clench around the edges of the leather seat, the downpour a gentle roar all around us. "The thing that attacked me in the forest the last time – was that it?"

The concerned, somewhat sympathetic expression that I got in response told me that she still thought I was a little off my rocker, but at that moment, I didn't need her to believe me. I didn't even need her to give me an answer. Because deep down, I _knew._

Jamie's warm hand came up to rest on my arm, but I couldn't relax. Not yet. Not while we were still outside, with… with that _thing_ so close. The last time I'd been chased into the forest, I'd gotten a front row seat to how huge it was – all muscle, fur, and teeth. Jamie's tiny Subaru wouldn't stand a chance.

I reached a decision.

"Go," I blurted out, jerking my head towards the road ahead. "The truck's gone now."

Jamie still looked concerned, but she shifted the car back into gear and we were back on our way. I could feel her casting glances at me from time to time, but I was too agitated to provide any form of reassurance.

It felt like hours before we finally pulled up to the narrow road outside my house. It was still pouring.

"Come inside with me." At Jamie's raised eyebrow, I realized how that had sounded – almost desperate, even – but I couldn't very well _leave_ her out there to fend for herself in the rain, could I? Not while I knew that monster was on the loose. "… Please? At least till it stops raining out?"

She sighed. A long pause ensued. "Alright," she finally said, though I suspected that she was only agreeing because she thought I was two fries short of a Happy Meal. I could live with her thinking I was crazy – better having my best friend think I was touched in the head than… well, dead.

Yeah, that's totally not morbid. But I had her best interests at heart, I swear. I pulled out my "l'm feeling bummed and need some girly hangout time with my best friend in the universe" card, and it took a fair amount of convincing to make her drop the issue. A quick chat with my Ma (with some interjecting on Charles's part), lunch, and some homework later, we went from playing cards on my bed to falling asleep.

Well, _she_ fell asleep. I'm awake and writing in my diary. My nerves are still a little frazzled, but I've recovered from the shock, mostly. My head hurts like a bitch, but getting out of bed to get to the meds might wake Jamie up, so I guess I'll have to stay put for now.

Which brings back to the grim reality: I need to talk to Sam Uley. There's no getting around it. He was made head of security on the rez a few months back, which seemed a little weird to me back then since we'd never had the need for one before. But now… now I know. Sam can help. He won't think I'm crazy.

He can help.

He has to.

**xxx**

**S****aturday, January 28****th****, later**

Okay, I know I said just now that I was going to get Sam's help with the bear-hippo thing… and I want to go. Really. Jamie's gone, Danny's out at work, Charles and Benji are getting ready to go out for more Y chromosomal hangout stuff (nothing I want to know about, I'm sure), and I'm all bundled up in my thickest winter clothes, ready for a fresh round of uphill hiking to Sam's place.

But then I realized that going to Sam's house might entail running into Jared, since he's part of Sam's harem and all. And the mere thought of seeing him again makes me want to hurl. I'm absolutely horrible with confrontations, too – I guess you could say I'm a pacifist? Avoidance has worked out pretty well for me so far. If I don't have to see him, then I won't have to deal with emotions. Emotions are bad.

Yeah.

Okay, which would be worse: Having a potentially excruciating run-in with the ex-boy-of-your-dreams, or having everyone you love eaten by a man-eating bear-hippo?

… Fine, I'm going.

**xxx**

**S****aturday, January 28****th****, later later**

I suck.

I was about to leave the house, but then Ma looked like she needed some help with the laundry, and then I _had_ to help Charles find one of his sneakers (though how he managed to lose one shoe and not the other was beyond me). Then there was another mad hunt for Benji's car keys, which took the better half of twenty minutes, and involved every able-bodied family member crawling around the already cramped living room floorspace (he found the keys in the back pocket of his jeans afterwards).

I'm putting it off, I know. As much as I want to pull on my boots and get my ass over to Sam Uley's house… the notion of coming face-to-face with Jared makes me want to hide under the covers for the rest of eternity.

I've got it. I'll make a list. I used to be a bit of a pros and cons list freak a while back – I was horribly indecisive back then and listing advantages and disadvantages helped the process along somewhat. Come to think of it, I'm _still _horribly indecisive. Even simple tasks like picking out my lunch take around ten minutes or more; it drives Jamie up the wall. (It's hardly my fault that caf food choices are crap, is it?)

So… here we go. A list.

TO GO

1) Bear hippo. 'Nuff said.

2) I'm already dressed. Plus, it's not raining. So I should leave _now_, before the storm clouds roll in.

3) I... like Emily?

OR NOT TO GO

1) Jared.

2) It's cold out. And it could start raining at any moment. It _is_ La Push, after all.

3) Jared. (This one should count twice.)

_ARRRRGGGH._

I now have a glass of warm milk in hand, thanks to Ma. Apparently, I've been scowling darkly at my diary for the last ten minutes.

… Okay, this has to stop. I'm going to Sam's.

**xxx**

**S****aturday, January 28****th****, LATE**

Oh my god.

I didn't – I didn't make it to Sam's place.

Okay. _Okay. _Deep breaths, Connweller. You can do this. Just… _breathe_.

I don't think I even made it midway to my target destination – I probably only walked for about twenty minutes before it happened. I was on my merry way, trying not to think about how awkward and painful it was going to be if I happened to run into _him_ at Sam's place, all the while trying not to slip on any wet leaves lining the side of the road (a harder task than you might think), so I was caught entirely off-guard when the half-naked Quileute boy that was Paul materialized in front of me.

"Where the _fuck_ have you been?" His voice was a near-snarl, and the barely concealed fury underlying it had me taking an involuntary step back.

Crap.

_Kick him in the crotch again? _Inner Kim suggested helpfully.

I probably would've followed through with her suggestion, if it hadn't been for the the warning growl he shot my way, as if he knew what I was thinking. The look in his eyes said _try it and you'll regret it, little girl._

I felt my heartbeat accelerate as I took stock of the situation – Tall, Angry Guy: check. Soon-To-Be-Dead Girl Who Happened To Kick Aforementioned Angry Guy In The Nuts Before Fleeing The Scene: check. Deserted Road: check.

Paul was going to kill me. I knew it.

Every instinct in my body was screaming _get away, curl up into a ball, grovel, do __something_, but none of it was registering. I stood there, frozen in my tracks, unable to move.

"Well?" he demanded.

My silence only seemed to make him angrier. His eyes flashed, and I got the feeling that it was taking all of his control not to physically grab me by the shoulders and shake some answers out of me.

"_Kim!_"

Jared.

He burst onto the scene through a thicket of forest on the right. With the both of them so close, it was impossible to ignore how Paul and Jared were like mirror images of each other – similar build, skin tone, facial features, and they were both decked out solely in tattered shorts, no shoes – only Jared looked like he'd just been to hell and back, if the dark eye circles under his eyes were any indication. He also looked like he'd lost some weight since I'd last seen him. He looked… sick.

I had to force my gaze away from the relief that was spreading over Jared's face as he took me in, focusing instead on Paul, who seemed to have progressed from angry to seriously pissed off in the span of the few seconds it took for Jared to move to my side.

"You're alright." Jared's voice was thick with emotion, and I had to clamp down on the impulse to turn to face him again. Paul's glare deepened.

_This is a nightmare. I __knew__ this was going to be a bad idea. God, of all the stupid –_

"Your _girlfriend_ over here was just telling me about why she didn't come home last night." There was no friendliness in Paul's tone. Not that I'd been expecting any.

"That's none of your business," I finally managed to get out, though with a notable lack of bite behind the statement.

"That's where you're wrong, sweetheart." His features twisted into a cruel sneer. "You became my fucking business ever since Jared over here decided to –"

" –Paul," Jared choked out. "_Don't._"

I couldn't fight it this time. I jerked my gaze from Paul's to Jared's, but he wasn't looking at me. He was looking at Paul, and the tension in the air was palpable. Remember what I said earlier, about confrontations, and how I was absolutely horrible with them? Well, yeah. I _hate_ them. The thought of witnessing one up close, or worse, being _involved_ in one, made me want to abandon all pretense of bravery and run screaming back home to my Ma.

"Don't fucking tell me what to do," Paul snarled. "You're not _Sam._"

"I haven't told her about it yet –"

"Oh, but I think you already _did._" Fury. Directed at… me? Yep, there was no mistaking it – if looks could kill, I'd pay good money to wager that Paul's would've sent me straight into cardiac arrest.

I was going to throw up. "Um, I really think I should go now."

"You're not going anywhere," he snapped.

Something inside me (the suicidal part, I reckon) rebelled at the idea of taking orders from someone who wasn't family, wasn't a friend, and _certainly_ wasn't someone I'd consider spending any amount of time with under any circumstances, so when the words formed in my mind, they bypassed my brain-mouth filter entirely and I couldn't hold them back.

"I'll go where I want to, thank you very much." I returned his glare with one of my own, my fists clenching at my side. "It's none of your business what I do or don't do, Paul Warnick!"

If possible, the tension in the air only got thicker. "Is that so, Kimmy?" His lips twisted upwards in a cruel mockery of a smile, one that only fuelled my ire. "I'm sure Jared here has a second opinion about that. Don't you, Jared?"

Jared's only response was a menacing growl. His features had shifted to one of fury, too – then realization crept onto his face as he seemed to catch on to what Paul was saying. "Paul, _don't._"

"What's going on?" I demanded, looking from Paul to Jared. I was _confused, damn it, _and the entire conversation leading up to that point had me feeling distinctly out of the loop.

"I'm surprised you haven't figured it out by now, Kimmy." Paul's gaze met mine, dead-on. The cruel half-smirk was still on his face as he turned to look at Jared. "Didn't you say she was really smart? She's not looking too quick on her feet, here. Does your girl need a diagram?"

"Fuck you, Paul." Jared's voice was strangled, and I was filled with a familiar sense of alarm when I saw his huge form starting to shake.

_Shit. _

I took a step forward. "Jared, are you al –"

"_Don't come any closer!_"

I froze in my tracks.

In a flash, Paul was in front of me, his large back blocking Jared's now-hunched form from view. I tried to sidestep him, but he was faster. "… Paul, _move._"

He ignored me. "Jared, get a hold of yourself." His voice was deeper and rougher than I remembered, and it was with some trepidation that I realized that _he_ was shaking, too. Not as much as Jared, but he was now standing so close that it was impossible not to notice.

_What on __earth_ _is wrong with these two? What am I not getting? What did Paul mean earlier, by –_

" – do you _want_ her to end up like Emily?"

"What?" I choked out. My brain was processing at a mile a minute, but none of the pieces were coming together to form a full picture. Instead, I latched onto what Paul had just said and tried to get myself up to speed. "_What did you just say?_"

I managed to move to the side, but his towering form still blocked most of my view of Jared. I did catch sight of Paul's grim profile, though, and it wasn't comforting. At all.

"_Run_." I actually _felt_ the command brush over my skin. There was an overwhelming need to _obey_, but I couldn't pull myself away, couldn't jump up and _leave _Jared while he wasn't himself.

"I can't just leave Jared here - "

Paul's voice was rough, the muscles on his back rippling and tensing in anticipation of… _something._ "He'll survive. You _won't_."

Before I could decide how to react to this – flee? Scream? Kick Paul in the crotch and run over to Jared anyway? – it happened.

Jared exploded in a movement of fur, skin and muscle. The spot where he'd been crouched on a mere few seconds before stood… that _thing_. The monster. The bear-hippo.

_Werewolf._

I…

I need to lie down.

* * *

**Thanks for reading!**

**xxx**

**Malice Cat**

**Next: **_**Allegro**_


	10. Allegro

**To fireylight, lovably17, kimmmz, judyootori, Lena Tyrins, exquisiteabyss, KeepSteady, alicecullenisrealinmyworld, Izzy Rose, butterskew, IshaLane, GrumpySunshine, queenamz, Dragonic-blast, chocolateluver101, Jessica L, musicmakesfun, Geeky godess, jaredkimlover, and happinie93 – thanks for reviewing! **

**I'm terribly sorry that this took so long to get up – alas, I do have a valid excuse. I was at a pre-party last month and some jackass decided to take a stage dive. Right onto my right arm, and two of my ribs. Soooo… yeah. You won't fault a failed Southpaw for typing **_**Allegro **_**out at a snail's pace, will you?**

**

* * *

**

_**10. Allegro**_

**xxx**

**Sunday, January 29th**

Okay.

I've thrown up three times since I got up today. The first time was to upend the scrambled eggs I'd managed to force down my throat at breakfast. The second and third time… was pure gastric acid.

I hope I'm done. Throwing up – glamorized by all that teenage crap they show on TV – really isn't my thing. The queasy feeling in my gut, the taste of acid in my throat, the uncontrollable reflex to gag whenever the thought of _that thing_ crosses my mind…

Round 4, here I come.

**Sunday, January 29****th****, later**

As it turns out, when there's absolutely nothing left in your stomach, contents-wise, your body will make you pay a different sort of toll. By the end of all the dry retching and the heaving, I was borderline hysterical. So hysterical, in fact, that Benji came in, took one look at me, and promptly hauled me off to the car.

You have to give the guy some credit – I think I was kicking and screaming and being a general bitch to carry out the door, and considering how he's built on the wiry/lean side (whereas Danny and Charles are more of the "brick shithouse" variety), I was more than a little impressed at how he was able load me into the vehicle without anything getting broken or dislocated.

"Ma," I blubbered, only vaguely aware of Benji's hands grappling with the seat belt as he attempted to buckle me in. "I want Ma."

"She's at Sue's." Benji's voice sounded very far away. I curled into a tighter ball. "I can go get her, if you want."

Face buried in my knees, I shook my head. The tears kept coming.

"Kim." A hand came up to rest between my shoulder blades, and I instinctively flinched away. I felt Benji's hand retreat, though he continued talking. "What's wrong, kid?"

I didn't answer. Didn't know where to begin. Didn't know how to put it in words.

I heard the growing concern in his voice as he tried again, but it only made me cry harder. After what felt like ages, the familiar sounds of the engine starting hit my ears.

My head snapped up. "Where are we going?" (Except it probably sounded more like _Berr arr be goan_, thanks to the fact that my throat was raw from all the sobbing and throwing up.)

I caught a glimpse of Benji's worried profile – stiff jaw, furrowed eyebrows, lips tightly pressed together as he belted himself in – and the panic kicked in, full scale. "Benji, no! We can't leave!"

"I'm taking you to the hospital," was his reply. He shifted the car into gear.

"Stop!" I yelped, making a mad dive towards the wheel. "I don't want to go! I'm fine!"

He looked startled by my sudden shift in countenance - though it's hard to say what his exact reaction was, considering how I was halfway draped across his lap, frozen hands trying to peel his fingers off the steering to no avail. Then, firmly, he untangled my arms from the mess I'd made of my seat belt, but I refused to budge from my position, despite his attempts to extricate me from my death grasp on the wheel.

"Kim." The weight of worry in his voice had my eyes tearing up again. I kept my gaze resolutely on my fingers pressed over his, the digits criss-crossing over the cracked leather. Same shape, same shade… but his were longer, more calloused. "You know you can talk to me about anything, right?"

Mutely, I nodded.

"Then 'fess up, kid. What's all this about?"

I wanted so badly to say that nothing was wrong, that I was fine, that it was just PMS and he'd caught me at a bad time, but I had a feeling that he'd see straight through the lie and cart me off to the hospital anyway. We had insurance, sure. But I was pretty sure our brand of limited medical insurance didn't cover _crazy_.

So I did the next best thing.

"You know how …" I paused to lick my suddenly dry lips, my voice sounding hoarse and unfamiliar in the calm of the car. "You know how – this is hypothetical, yeah – you sort-of-like someone, and you have for an awfully long time, but then stuff happens and you think you're hallucinating things and people start acting weird, and just when you have the guy pegged down for being a complete lying asshole bastard who should rot in the fires of hell for lying to your face when you're only _trying_ to be his friend, it turns out that he was telling the truth all along and you feel like the biggest idiot in the world?"

Benji blinked a few times. He looked like he needed some time to process. I didn't blame him, but my mouth wasn't giving him that option. The words tumbled out, unfettered, and it was all I could do not to unleash all that verbal diarrhea on the poor guy.

Then again… that brain-mouth filter of mine hasn't exactly been up to speed lately.

"And then you're just _standing there_ while the two guys start brawling it out, and it's like watching territorial violence amongst the Alaskan moose on the Discovery Channel, only without the peeing and the antlers, and you end up shaking, too, and praying to whatever gods are out there for some sort of device that'll let you go back in time, or better still, _teleport_ back home – but you can't _get away_, because the thought of leaving makes you feel sick and some part of you wants to cry and scream and throw up at the same time, so you're stuck watching the bloodbath between two supposedly mythical beasts unfold right before your eyes, and there's nothing you can say or do that can make it all stop, short of dressing in drag and doing the hula – which I did internally, by the way, since I was going to go crazy either way – and then –"

My diatribe was cut short by Benji's quick exhale of "Ma's back", and relief practically seeped off his pores as he slid out of the seat from under me and got out of the car, kicking the door shut behind him as he all-but sprinted over to a familiar figure making its way across our front lawn.

I sat up and stared gloomily at his retreating back, a little miffed that he hadn't stayed to hear the rest of my hypothetical story. Granted, it was a little _out there_, but out of all my family, Benji had always been one for sci-fi stuff, so I figured telling him a story about werewolves probably wouldn't freak him out as much as it would to say… Danny. Who'd probably bundle me up in a straitjacket and have me checked in at the nearest holding facility.

I was interrupted from my inner doom and gloom when the car door reopened, to reveal Ma. I felt something inside me settle, though the gut-clenching nausea was still there.

Deep breaths, Connweller. One step at a time.

I shifted slightly to make room as she moved into the spot where Benji had just vacated, then proceeded to bury my face in her lap.

Neither of us said anything for a long time. The only sounds were that of our breathing, and the rustle of her fingers against my hair.

"Ma," I finally said, breaking the silence. "We should move. Out of La Push, I mean."

Her fingers stilled, and the surprise was audible in her voice when she replied. "Why's that?"

"… It's not safe here."

She didn't laugh at me like I expected her to, but the voice took on a more serious tone. "Is this about the bear, sweet?"

I felt my heartbeat accelerate. "It's not a bear," I muttered.

Her fingers resumed stroking my hair, but I could feel the agitation building up inside me. After _that_ experience, I'd have gladly snuggled up to an angry grizzly if it meant never seeing those two again. There wasn't enough therapy in the world to erase those images from my mind. All I had to do was close my eyes to have that scene replayed over and over in my head, like a broken record that wasn't going to be fixed anytime soon.

It was all spelled out for me. Jared and Paul were werewolves. Sam was their ringleader. They had the entire town in the dark about it. And Emily…

She'd never been attacked by a bear to begin with. It was _Sam_. Sam had done that to her.

The head of security on the reservation was a _werewolf_.

The bile rose in my throat. I clapped a hand over my mouth and scrambled ungracefully through the open car door, hunching over miserably in the grass as I tried to ignore the taste of acid on my tongue.

"I'm alright, Ma," I groaned, holding up a hand as I glimpsed a shadow passing over my form. "I just… need some antacids. Maybe."

"Kim Connweller," a male voice rumbled. "We need to talk."

I swear, I nearly went into cardiac arrest then and there. In my weakened physical state, I couldn't even put up much of a fight as I gingerly got to my feet, studiously avoiding his gaze as I picked some invisible detritus off my sweater. _This won't end well._

"Mrs. Connweller." Sam's voice was perfunctory in how it was completely neutral – nothing in it suggested that he was about to go on a crazy wolf rampage. That… that was good.

Right?

"Well, if it isn't Sam Uley," I heard Ma say. "You've grown, haven't you? How's Emily doing?"

"She's doing fine, ma'am," was his smooth reply. "I came here today to discuss something with Kim, if it's alright with you."

_Say no!_ I screamed internally. _Say you need me for laundry duty! Anything!_

My inner pleas fell on deaf ears. Before I could so much as protest, Ma was nodding, smiling at something Sam was saying, _shaking his hand_, and turning to leave. A final nail in the coffin: "Come inside if you're feeling worse, baby. I'll have the antacids and some cocoa ready." And then she was in the house.

I was alone. With a werewolf.

The way I turned to him was almost mechanical. _Okay, he's wearing actual clothes this time. Shoes, too. I guess he wants to look as non-threatening as possible when he rips my throat out._

"Hello, Sam." I said hollowly. "Nice weather we're having today."

"Kim Connweller," he said, and the rich timbre of his voice sent a slew of goosebumps breaking free on my skin. "Have you recovered?"

"Just get it over with already, Sam," I said miserably. "You didn't come here to enquire after my health. Are you going to kill me or not?"

A pause. I thought I saw a fleeting smile pass over his face, but it must've been a trick of the light. That, and the hunger gnawing at my stomach was making me dizzy.

"I'm not here to kill you." A cough. "I'm here to let you know that I would have preferred if you found things out a different way – suffice to say that you would have found out on your own, eventually. But what's done is done."

"What's done is done," I echoed. My fingernails dug into the skin of my palms, hard. "If you're not here to kill me… What's going to happen, Sam? I mean… " Blood was pounding in my veins, and despite the cold, I knew I was starting to sweat. "I won't tell anyone about it, but _please_ don't hurt my family – "

Sam's large palm came up to rest on my shoulder, effectively silencing me. "Kim," he said. "No one is going to hurt your family. We exist on this reservation to protect its people."

I must've looked skeptical, because he continued. "The men of our tribe share a common ancestry. We can shift to a lupine form at will, though certain… conditions may trigger the change, as well. We mean the people of this town no harm."

"… Okay," I finally got out. "Okay." My head was reeling from all this new information, but I tried not to let the confusion show on my face.

_How will I know if he's lying?_

"You won't," Sam said bluntly.

I gaped up at him. "You can read minds?"

The corners of his mouth twitched upwards. "I took a guess," he said affably. "You're easy enough to read."

A scowl escaped onto my face, unbidden, and he chuckled.

"Get inside," he said, releasing his hold on my shoulder – odd, I'd forgotten it'd been there to begin with. "Rest up for tonight."

"Tonight?" I repeated. "What's on tonight?"

"You'll find out soon enough."

And with all that said and done, he left.

**Sunday, January 29****th****, late**

What did I just agree to?

Oh, wait. I didn't _technically_ agree, did I? It's not like he asked me, or anything. So it really shouldn't count.

Unless it was one of those _unspoken agreement_ things, which is just… crap.

Fuck.

**xxx**

**Sunday, January 29****th****, later**

What if it's a trap?

What if… what if Sam Uley didn't kill me earlier because cleaning my entrails off the front lawn would've been too messy? What if the fake camaraderie was just a set-up to get me to go to some secluded, remote area where no one would be able to hear my screams of agony?

xxx

**Sunday, January 29****th****, later later**

_CRAPCRAPCRAPCRAPCRAPCRA –_

_

* * *

_

**Monday, January 30****th****, very, very early**

_Well._

That was… that wasn't what I'd expected.

I haven't slept all night. But I'm awake. Wide, wide awake. It's like someone took a needle and shot caffeine into my veins.

I'll start from where I left off earlier – back when I was hyperventilating in my room, a few breaths away from passing out in the corner of my room. It was pitch dark outside (not too surprising, given that it was 10pm), and I'd excused myself from dinner early, barely escaping suspicion by saying that I was having a killer headache. Which wasn't exactly a lie. Images of recent events kept swirling around in my mind, giving me the oddest sensation of having pink soup filling my head.

Which was how I'd ended up sequestered in my room at 8.30 in the evening. I kid you not, diary. I'd even changed into my jammies for authenticity, in case Danny decided to come in to check on me (Which he totally did. My fake snoring must've done the trick, though).

But then the most awful part was the _waiting_, by far. There's nothing quite like feeling ice in your veins when you're buried under three of your thickest blankets. The silence seemed to stretch on and on as I lay there, caught in between shaking from anxiety and staying as still as possible… maybe if Sam thought I was asleep, he'd let me skip the beheading ritual? I didn't want to think of the alternative, either – that it wouldn't be Sam crawling in to get me, but _someone else_ – and that was when I heard the sound of knuckles rapping against the window.

I muffled my shriek into the pillow I was currently burrowed into, before getting up in the most dignified way I could manage (that is, with bed head and a slight stumble in my step when my bare feet hit the icy floor) and moving to the window to see… Paul?

My hand hesitated for a second before flipping the latch on the window – and in an instant, the window was jerked open.

I was face to face with a werewolf. And from the look on said werewolf's face, neither of us was exactly happy about it.

"Out," he snapped. His jaw was tense, and I could make out a vein pulsing down his neck.

This did not bode well.

All my instincts for self-preservation were screaming _stay where you are! Spray some holy water in his face while you're at it!_ but I guess my body had other ideas. Numbly, I stepped forward and clambered up and out. Each movement felt concrete-heavy in the oppressive silence that hung in the air. I don't think the situation could've been any more uncomfortable if Paul and I had just found out that we were estranged siblings.

And speaking of siblings…

"I need to get back before my brothers find out I'm gone." My voice cracked a little, and it was a struggle holding his flat gaze. _That is, if I'll be coming back to begin with._

A grunt. The closest I got to a reply was a fierce glare, before he stepped forward and scooped me up. In less than a heartbeat, I was off my feet and in the arms of a were –

Werewolf.

I… still can't get used to writing it. This is too unreal.

"Paul," I gritted out. His skin was searing hot, and it was only then that I realized that the increased body temperature thing _had _to be supernaturally-induced – there was no way a fever lasting that long would still have the guy vaulting over rotting logs like an overzealous Italian plumber.

When he failed to respond, I tried again. "Paul?"

No answer. The tightening of his muscles should have been a sign for me to change course, but I had to get it out of my system. "Pa –"

" – the fuck do you want?" he demanded. Looking at him, I could see the tense line of his jaw, the barely reined-in aggression, and a trace of… uneasiness?

And just like that, I felt myself relax a fraction, possibly due to the fact that I wasn't the only one weirded out about it all. Paul would never be the kindred spirit I needed, but having him not bite my face off at first sight was encouraging.

The words that came out of my mouth surprised me. "How did you become a werewolf?"

He snorted. It lacked any real hostility, so I wasn't too worried about the question possibly hitting a sore spot. It took a moment, but he finally replied. "I was born one, yeah."

"_Born_ one?"

Another snort. "It's in our blood. My dad was one, so I'm one. It's not exactly rocket science, kid."

My voice was hushed when I finally took this all in. "Am I… am I one?"

He laughed. A real laugh, too, and not a forced one. It brought the tension down another level. "Not even close. We don't get she-wolves around here." A pause. "Although…"

I had to crane my neck to catch the smirk that spread across his face. "What?"

"You'd make for one crazy-ass she-wolf. So it's a good thing you ain't one then, eh?"

I let out a huff of outrage. "_Excuse_ me? Who're you calling crazy, Paul Warnick?"

His resounding laugh rattled my bones. "At least _I_ don't go around kicking weres in the family jewels, sweetheart. Didn't your Ma ever tell you to mind the jewels?"

I was still giggling when he set me down in the clearing outside Sam's house. But any lightheartedness we'd built up over the past few minutes dissipated with the arrival of one very tall, very intimidating Sam Uley.

… At least he had a shirt on this time.

"Kim." His tone was cordial. "All dressed up for the festivities, I see."

The panic returned, full force. _He didn't say there was going to be a dress code!_ I felt incredibly self-conscious in my threadbare tracksuit and parka for a moment, before I caught sight of a twitch at the corner of Sam's lips. His eyes glinted with amusement.

_This doesn't look like a ritualistic execution_. Inner Kim sounded dubious. _In fact, the décor's kind of… __cheery__ for anything involving evisceration._

She was right. From where we were standing, I could glimpse the kitchen through the gaping hole where the door used to be. I could make out what looked like a _lot _of food on the table, and… _balloons_?

I pinched myself. The resulting twinge of pain was so unexpected that I actually looked down at the offending hand and scowled at it for a full five seconds.

"You're not dreaming," Sam assured me, his voice a disconcerting rumble as he steered me towards the house. Paul had loped off into the kitchen and was currently circling the table – I could see Emily laughing and swatting his hands away from a plate of cookies.

"…I have to be," I mumbled, acutely aware of Sam's palm on the small of my back as I made it up the deck stairs (barefoot, I might add. Hindsight's 20/20).

"Kim!" The unscarred half of Emily's face lifted up in a smile as she came towards me for a hug. Still a tad overwhelmed, I settled for dazedly patting her on the back as I took in the surroundings: balloons, flowers, pastries, cookies, _cake_… this looked suspiciously like a party.

My gaze was still darting about the room when I finally formulated a sentence. "What's the occasion?" _Besides my disembowelment, of course._

Paul had taken the opportunity of Emily's momentary distraction to stuff an entire muffin into his mouth. Sam cuffed him on the back of his head before dropping a fond kiss on the atop Emily's forehead (he had to bend a fair bit, considering how his six-foot-something frame dwarfed her completely), murmuring an apology before crossing the kitchen to head into the living room.

Emily positively glowed with happiness. "It's _your _welcome party, Kim."

"Er… come again?"

She made a sound that could've been impatience – or slight annoyance, given that she'd caught on to Paul's food-stealing and was shooing him away with admirable vigor. Paul managed to wrangle a final handful of chocolate cookies before he was physically pushed out of the kitchen amidst laughing protests ("There's not going to be any food left for the party if you eat it all, Paul!" "Geez, Em… there's enough food to feed the entire town in there!" "_Out!_")

And Emily was back, clasping my palms in her warm ones, her eyes dancing with mirth. "I'm so glad you're finally in on the secret, Kim – it's kind of lonely being the only girl amongst a pack of boys."

"Uh –" I blinked a few times, overwhelmed and trying to get my bearings. "That's… great?"

She beamed, and wrapped me up in another hug.

Through all this, my brain was working overtime. _So this isn't a pre-execution party. I'm not going to die. Emily's happy that I know about the whole werewolf thing. But where's –_

"Kim."

Standing in the open doorway behind me (how had I missed his approach, and how long had he been there?) was Jared. He looked the same as when I'd seen him last – shadows under his eyes, a slight pallor underlying his normally russet skin. And considering what had happened the last time…

_Snap out of it!_ Inner Kim chided.

"Jared." My voice sounded very far away. My mouth opened, but I was at a loss for words. I wondered it must've looked like to Emily: Jared hunching his shoulders in the ruined doorway, my posture a direct mirror of his, except I probably looked… I don't know. Anxious? Worried? Scared, maybe?

The silence seemed to stretch on forever, interrupted only by Emily's "I'll let you two have some privacy" and a hasty retreat. She took in my widened, pleading eyes and gave me a reassuring smile in a return, which only made my stomach sink even lower.

Breathe, girl.

Stiffly, I moved to the table (which was groaning under the weight of the assorted pies and pastries) and mechanically picked up a raisin muffin. Open mouth. Bite. Chew. Chew. Swall –

"So." Jared's voice was even, his expression impossible to read. "You know about the wolves."

I knew it was coming, though that didn't stop the piece of muffin from getting lodged in my throat. The coughing fit that followed was alarming in more ways than one: the tickle in my throat became a full-blown itch and I genuinely thought I'd empty the entire contents of my stomach onto Emily's efforts, and with the added sensation of Jared's searing-hot hand running along my back… I didn't know whether to curse the muffin or hope it'd stay lodged in my throat forever.

And finally, I managed to clear my throat and look up at the boy I'd been in love with for as long as I could remember. My eyes were a little watery from my earlier bout of coughing, but the image of the smiling, laughing young Quileute boy I'd become accustomed to had already been replaced with someone a little bulkier and a lot taller; someone who presently looked more of a man at sixteen than others would ever hope for in their mid-thirties.

Jared was no longer a boy, _that_ I knew. I felt ridiculously young and small next to him, like some little kid playing at love.

"Are you okay?" The concern in his eyes made my heart _hurt_.

"I –" don't break down, don't _cry_ "- I'm fine, Jared. Really."

"Oh." A brief moment of awkwardness that followed when he finally stepped away, his arm falling from where it rested on my shoulders.

Biting my lip, I braced my arms on the edge of a kitchen counter and tried to will the rawness in my throat away.

Silence.

"You're my imprint."

The look on my face must've been reminiscent of the blankest canvas in La Push, because a small smile tugged at the corners of his mouth in response.

"You're my imprint," he repeated, like it was supposed to _mean_ something.

_Imprint._ I turned the word over and over in my head, feeling the weight of it tug on the threads of my consciousness. Somehow, that word sounded familiar… My brows furrowed.

The question was on the tip of my tongue, but he must've seen the question coming. "It's… hard to explain. You're the one, Kim."

_You're the one_.

I was _definitely_ dreaming.

And suddenly, he was moving closer. I wanted to step away, but the counter pressed hard into my back. My fingers were gripping at the edge in my anxiety, and I could feel my heart rate accelerating as his fingers moved to cover mine, effectively caging me in with his broad form as he bent down, our faces inches apart –

"- Getting the party started without us, Redds?"

It was Paul, of course. His grin was so wide; he could've made for a good Cheshire Cat.

I heard Jared mutter a curse under his breath, and the warmth of his body left mine as he strode over to Paul and took a good-natured swing at him. Paul dodged easily, and there was laughter all around as Emily and Sam returned, Emily shooting me a curious glance as they came back into the kitchen – they'd apparently missed the… moment.

_Did that really happen?_

The events that followed passed in a blur of activity. I simply nodded a lot and watched the pile of food before me diminish at an alarming rate. I couldn't get what had nearly transpired out of the chaos in my head, and I think my distraction must've shown, somehow.

The party came to an abrupt end sometime around midnight. A sudden silence enveloped the table, and Sam, Paul, and Jared tensed up simultaneously – a collective, unrehearsed motion that set my nerves on edge.

"What's wrong?" Emily's voice was steady, though I could see the lines of worry etched onto her face.

Sam sounded a little strained in his reply. He murmured something I didn't quite catch into her ear, then turned away and nodded imperceptibly towards Paul and Jared.

"Kim," he said cordially. "I trust you enjoyed the party? We'll have to introduce you to the council some other time."

He was out the door before I could formulate a reply, Paul at his heels. My gaze locked with Jared's as he paused in the ruined doorway. Some unspoken message passed between us as he tilted his head ever so slightly in the direction of the clearing, a hint of a smile in his eyes.

Just like that, my legs were moving, unbidden, bringing me to the back porch. The floorboards creaked under my feet, and the battered railing looked like it couldn't take more damage, but I pressed my palms against it anyway. Expectation surged through my veins as I leaned forward, wide eyes alighting on the moonlit silhouettes in the clearing before me – three impossibly tall Quileute boys standing together were a sight to behold, even on this reservation – and then, they changed. I don't know how to describe it. One second, they were human, though it looked like their forms were blurring at the edges… and the next, they were wolves.

Not bear-hippos. Actual _wolves_, with razor-sharp incisors and features that were inarguably canine. I recognized the Paul- and Jared-wolves, though Sam's was a first for me. His wolf was black as the night, and there was an eerie intelligence in its golden eyes that belied the man underneath.

I watched as they headed off into the forest, my throat thick with an emotion I couldn't name.

I didn't speak for the rest of the night. I think Emily understood. She packed up some leftover pie for me in a container and drove me home.

I really should be sleeping, but…

What on earth's an "imprint"?

* * *

**Thanks for reading! **

**xxx**

**Malice Cat**

**Next:**_** Accelerando**_


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